People Magazine’s Most Beautiful List Proves That Democrats Are Just Plain Hotter

We’ve swooned over US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner ever since we mooted him for a Treasury position last year. That skin! Those boyish looks! That adorable confused frown he makes when he can’t quite figure out a unilateral action plan! Well it turns out that we’re not the only ones – People magazine in the US has named Geithner one of their 100 most beautiful people, alongside Efron, Tatum, Pattinson and the rest of the interchangeable bedroom-wall fodder who may or may not be in Gossip Girl.

Geithner, who bathes in pentapeptides and Just For Men to combat the accelerated aging process that happens to people at the heart of the financial crisis, is just one of a few White House staffers to be deemed pulchritudinous enough to stand alongside Frieda Pinto. Michelle Obama makes the grade, unsurprisingly given radiance levels so strong they’re being mooted as a renewable energy source. Social secretary Desiree Rogers is another given, with her Vogue photoshoot, statement bob and refined features.

As for the men, there’s Sam Kass, Obama’s personal chef – not only is this guy sick-makingly attractive in a shaven-headed, vaguely Gallic sort of way, he also apparently lets Malia and Sasha paint his nails. He’s like a romcom finale made manifest. And then there’s Rahm Emanuel. His name is hot – he sounds like the owner of some decadent souk –  and the fact that he’s into ballet conjures images of some lithe zephyr swooping through the halls of power and sexily keeping everything in order. Even if he does look a bit like he was recently exhumed.

But remaining thoroughly grumpy about the whole thing is right-wing media panopticon NewsBusters, who have run an indignant survey: “Is People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful List Biased Towards Democrats This Year?” As one commenter suggests: “It can be argued that it’s [sic] bias is even more insidious than supposedly hard news sources because it sneaks subtle political/social bias into it’s [sic, jeez] coverage, affecting people who may not follow the news all that much, and are more succeptable [sic, SORT IT OUT] to the influence of celebrity”. Another describes Michelle Obama as a “chocolate kangaroo”.

Look, everyone knows that Republican babes are exclusively blond girls you fancied in school, but if you took them on a date now you’d order a cynanide pill as an amuse bouche – Britney, Jessica, Meghan, etc. And the men are all goateed country-music hunks who look like they’re built from flesh-coloured Duplo. OK, they’ve got Russ Feingold, whose L’Oreal-mediated ruggedness launched a thousand Elektra complexes. But together they just don’t make for a well-rounded list! Right, I’m off to gaze at Tina Fey…

Posted by Ben Beaumont-Thomas in Hot Money | April 30, 2009 1:31PM |