Cheap Shot & Costello

CNN anchoress Carol Costello carps that Cindy McCain looks like a Stepford Wife. NewsBusters
Costello: "Mrs. McCain look like - well, Glenn Close in the movie 'The Stepford Wives.'"

Miz Carol is referencing Cindy's Vogue spread where the brilliant Wash Post fashion czarina Robin Givhan observes: "If there is one word the picture seems to be aggressively striving to evoke, it would be "relaxed." McCain's studied repose is in direct contrast to the image she projects in campaign photographs in which she is pressed, polished and so stiffly poised that she often looks like a wax replica of a political spouse. There's nothing especially natural or nonchalant about her Vogue portrait. One can almost see the fingerprints of the assistant who adjusted her hands just so and one wonders how long she had to hold her head at what looks to be an uncomfortable angle. But the implied message is unmistakable: I am not a Stepford wife."

As for Michelle Obama's Vogue spread, her image conveys "Camelot with a tan."

In the 2004 movie Nicole Kidman plays a high-powered NYC network TV executive lured to Stepford, Connecticut by her diabolical husband. That comedy version sucked. The 1975 movie was far better (screenplay by William Goldman) and horrifying. Read Vincent Canby's 1975 NYT review.