Apologies for not being able to find a better picture, but I noticed while getting lunch that The National Interest — once a Very Serious foreign-policy journal — has run a cover image comparing Hillary Rodham Clinton, Janet Napolitano and Susan Rice to Farrah Fawcett, Jacklyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd. (Or, if you prefer, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu and Cameron Diaz.) I mentioned yesterday how if I were born a woman I would probably have killed someone by now, and this, I think, speaks to the point.

These are three cabinet secretaries with laundry-lists’ worth of accomplishments. Susan Rice was the youngest assistant secretary of state in history and one of the country’s leading thinkers on the role of human rights in statecraft. Janet Napolitano was an astonishingly successful governor who managed to move Arizona politics in a progressive direction during the age of Bush. Hillary Rodham Clinton pretty much makes history for a living. Strangely, none of them is a jiggly airhead crimefighter created for men’s entertainment. It might make sense to treat them accordingly if you want to be taken seriously. 

(I know, I know: men are so humorless.)