Getting it off my chest

The recent news about the former Miss California, Carrie Prejean, getting a book deal opens the door for me to rant for a moment about the fact that the Miss California Pageant paid for her breast implants.

Now, I don’t have a problem with any getting implants and I am willing to wager that the majority of beauty pageant contestants have got them. What’s really sticking in my craw, is that the Miss California Pageant paid for them before she went on to compete for the Miss USA title.

Not Prejean herself, but the people running the show. I’m sure the California pageant officials just thought they were leveling the playing field. But I can’t help but wonder if they were sitting around a table sizing up the competition when they decided their Barbie lookalike would be a bust without a bigger bust.

Keith Lewis, the co-director for the pageant, has said bigger boobs were Prejean’s idea. And in May, he told an “Early Show” anchor that his board meets with the titleholder and asks questions about her opinion of herself and what can give her the “best possible confidence … to present herself … on the national stage.”

The woman had already won the state pageant in one of the biggest states in the country. Funny, but for me, that’d be a pretty big confidence boost. Or affirmation.

From where I sit, this is like the director of baseball operations for the Kansas City Royals (who stink, to you nonbaseball-types) holding a team meeting to tell his players they’ll all be getting HGH injections so they’ll hit more homeruns and throw harder pitches.

Granted, HGH is a banned substance and silicone is not. If Prejean paid for the implants herself -- taken out a loan, held a bake sale, whatever – I’d have no problem with it.

But when the California pageant coughed up the dough for the augmentation, it sent (yet another) message to young women everywhere about body image and who makes the decisions about how we look.

By the way, there’s no word yet on whether or not Prejean will have to give her breasts back or reimburse the pageant since she lost the crown. Over nude pictures. Taken before the surgery. Anyone else see the irony?