Stupid is as stupid does.

My contention was that Carrie Prejean lost the Miss USA contest because she is a brainless bimbo who answered a question incoherently. Apparently she has regular problems with coherent answers, which only indicates that her pageant loss was well deserved. Consider some of her comments on Fox News recently.

Take this gem: “Unless we bring men and women together, children will not have mothers and fathers.” Apparently she got speech lessons from George Bush. Unless men and women come together there won’t be children, so whether these non-existent children have parents is rather moot.

She told CNN she was there “to promote marriage, to promote traditional marriage. And I’m just going to do whatever it takes to spread that awareness out.” Exactly what is she spreading awareness about? Is she spreading awareness that she’s promoting marriage? And how does one spread “awareness out?”

The first serious question she got was whether she would support civil unions. She doesn’t know. “My thought on civil unions? You know what, Greta? I don’t have answers to everything. I’m not running for political office. I don’t have the answers to everything, you know, in the world out there.”

I guess, you know, that she just doesn’t like, you know, have the answers to everything in “the world out there.” Apparently wherever she was calling in from wasn’t part of this world since the world was “out there” somewhere. I can actually believe she wasn’t grounded on this planet. Of course, she doesn’t, you know, want to take away all rights from gay people. She said: “But I think there should be rights for people, you know, especially in California.” Why should there be rights “especially in California,” as opposed to everywhere else? Is California, you know, part of the “world out there?”

She is generous: “I think that people that are homosexual should have some rights, you know, hospital rights and things like that.” How, you know, generous! Hey, some right are better than no rights. Imagine, the outcry, however, if some prominent advocate of gay marriage were to announce that Christians should have just “some rights,” but not equal rights. The martyr complex that infects many fundamentalists would go into overdrive at a remark like that. It is also outstanding that Prejeans wants “things like that” for gay people. Just don't ask her what "things like that" actually means.

Apparently Prejean doesn’t have the foggiest idea what a civil union is or what are the issues around them. She said: “I would like to be more educated on that, so when I do have a better answer for you, I will get back to you on that one.”

Asked about adoption rights she attempts to deflect the question by saying: “I am focusing on marriage right now, not adoption, not civil unions, just traditional marriage, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to promote that.”

Greta Van Susteren, of Fox, explained: “I’m just sort of trying to figure where you draw the line in terms of what kind of rights you think that a man and woman should have that maybe two men, two women, shouldn’t have.” Prejean’s answer: “I can’t give you an answer to that.” She may support “things like that” for gay people but she doesn’t know what those “things” are.

Then Prejean was asked, you know, if her antigay campaign will “be a full-time issue” or whether she had other things she planned to do. Her answer was: “You know, I can’t give you an answer for that.” Apparently she couldn’t give an answer to anything. She can’t coherently answer what she believes and she can’t even answer what she plans to do. Yet, you know, she’s for traditional marriage, or, as she previously put it “opposite marriage.”

The more she talks. the more obvious it is that we are dealing with a walking stereotype of the brainless beauty queen. Prejean’s main problem is a severe case of bimboitis exacerbated by extreme religiousity. Perhaps her recent breast enlargement was a defense mechanism: make them large enough and no one will pay attention to what she's actually saying. I get the impression that this is one woman who, when talking, would say to men: "Excuse me! But my breasts are down here."

The CNN interview indicated something that was clear the night of the pageant: Miss Prejean has trouble answering questions coherently. She wants to be a martyr for fundamentalist intolerance; to do that she must do interviews. But the more she talks, the more evidence there is that she was never a worthy candidate for the title of Miss USA. It’s not that she puts her foot in her mouth. That would be a step up for her. The problem is that she has nothing coherent to say. Her dilemma isn’t the content of her speech, but the lack of content. It is her inability to string words together, in a manner that actually says something, that is the root of her problem.

Yet, she wants to be the spokesperson for a cause. In most cases that would be a problem. But from what I’ve seen of the fundamentalists and anti-equality advocates, Miss Prejean, may well be one of the more articulate of the lot. If you don’t believe me, consider this comment that I recently read by an opponent to same-sex marriage:

It’s a shame that proponents of Gay Marriage have absolutely no understanding of why many people are opposed to it. Has it ever occurred to any of you that those of us who are against it are against it because it’s not a law that would apply strictly to Gays? Same sex marriage would be legal for the entire population.

Good luck figuring that one out.

Photo: Miss Prejean. What bikini would Jesus wear?