Meet De Pressing

Kristen Welker is a reason I'm ending my beautiful-women picture blog.

One of the articles of faith the led me to create that blog was that women of all backgrounds, not just actresses, models and dancers, are beautiful.  That would certainly be true, of course, of TV newswomen . . .  like Kristen Welker.  I had always emphasized the journalistic qualifications of women I have featured as much of their beauty, and when I first posted the picture of her above on my beautiful-women picture blog in July 2011, Kristen Welker - then an NBC reporter - seemed to be the perfect example.

And my followers agreed - the post got 56,436 pageviews, the most views any post on my blog had ever gotten.  It was also gratifying and reassuring to see so much interest in Kristen Welker in light of her mixed heritage - she's the daughter of a white father and a black mother.  This led me to write the following paragraph on my blog: 

"I have to say once again that I'm very pleased that a post of a biracial woman, at a time of increased racial animosity in America, has gotten so much attention. Not just in pageviews, but in comments; my original post of Ms. Welker has received ten comments, all favorable (adjectives used to describe her have included 'hot,' 'smart,' 'beautiful,' 'knowledgeable,' 'articulate,' 'focused,' 'elegant,' and 'professional'). Her transcendental quality as a woman of black and white origin proves that racism is slowly dying."

I was wrong about racism slowly dying, of course, but not as wrong as I was about Kristen Welker, who has since turned out to be just another corporate-news-media stooge.  When I posted this picture of her on my beautiful-women picture blog, in 2011, Kristen Welker was just a reporter at NBC.  But in September 2023, she succeeded Chuckles the Clown (also known as Chuck Todd) as the moderator of  NBC's "Meet the Press."  I eagerly awaited her debut on the program, only to see her "interview" Donald Trump and get run off course by his lies and half-truths instead of countering his falsehoods.   That was bad enough.  But what happened this past Sunday was too much - and inspired less flattering adjectives to describe Welker, such as "appalling," "lunkheaded," unserious," "clueless" and "derelict."

She brought up in a phone interview with Trump the topic of Trump's ambition for run for a third presidential term and asked if he was just kidding about that, but he said he was "not joking."  He said that his astonishing popularity in the polls demanded that he run again, and he offered possible end runs around the constitutional ban on third presidential terms that has been in place since 1951.  Welker failed to challenge Trump abut his poll numbers - they're actually in the toilet - and at no point did Welker call out Trump for citing explain to Trump why he couldn't circumvent the 22nd Amendment and how his ideas to do so were, essentially, illegal.  She just blew it off.

Welker also blew something up - her credibility.

Even though my beautiful-women picture blog will be shut down at the end of May, I went ahead and deleted my two posts of Kristen Welker (the second one was an experiment to see if it would get as many views as the first; it never even came close).  My blog may be only be around for two more months, but I don't even want Kristen Welker on my blog for even two more weeks.  I'm actually embarrassed - humiliated, even - that this blog attempted to feature TV newswomen known for their beauty but still celebrated them for their professionalism and substance as journalists . . . though, when you get right down to it, there I was, objectifying for her looks an NBC reporter who demonstrated the Peter Principle by getting Tim Russert's old job. 😧

And somehow it was my most popular post. 😞