First Guns

Gagging on Newsweek's "The Gaggle"

Katie Connolly of Newsweek, who wrote about Michelle and motherhood a while back, contributed to that magazine’s “The Gaggle” blog with a post about us last Thursday.

OK first: The Gaggle? That’s the best they could come up with? Sure, a “press gaggle” refers to an informal, yet on the record briefing to the White House press corps, and a “gaggle” is the technical term for a group of geese. But it’s also a derogatory term often used for groups of women, as well as military slang for a disorganized group. Since the two contributors to this blog are women, we’re calling this name ill-considered at best.

Back to Ms. Connolly, who was embedded in the McCain campaign throughout the ‘08 election and is now a political correspondent, asking the important question of our time, “So have the First Lady’s muscular bare arms prompted American women to rethink their workouts?” HOMG KATIE WE ARE INTERRUPTING OUR WORKOUT FOR THIS IN-DEPTH REPORT!

She does not, of course, answer the question, because that would take actual research and who would spend the money to research the ripple effect of our rippling biceps? Not The Gaggle! Connolly instead asks a local trainer who, we learn, “says yes.”

The rest of the piece is a rehash of fitness and women’s magazines advice about working out—combine cardio and strength training, no you won’t bulk, blah blah. What is is more than anything is a puff piece for the trainer, Jaime Andrews and her “sleek new DC fitness club.”

We are curious as to how this story got from its true home, a free local paper, into the blog of a prestigious magazine like Newsweek. We’re all for women working out, but we don’t think many women are going to national news magazines for help with their “bingo wings,” as Connolly calls them. Imagine a whole gaggle of women flapping their bingo wings around! Get your head down! Women, like all humans, read Newsweek for you know, the news.

Ms. Connolly, we’re sure you have a serious side. The other stories you’ve filed on the blog look good—pieces about President Obama’s trip to Buchenwald, the possibility of Texas going Democratic, your photo diary of Egypt. Maybe it was just your turn to supply the latter part of The Gaggle’s “Press, Politics, and Absurdity” tagline. But in the future, please leave us out of your puff pieces—we only like huffing and puffing in the weight room.