Is that who we think it is?

Writing a political blog for one of America’s leading newspapers is a tremendous responsibility, requiring many hours of tedious, careful research about the campaigns of the men and woman who would lead this country for the next four years. We take our work extremely seriously.

Policy issues. Polls. Political strategies and tactics. Interest groups. Debates by MyTube or YourFace or whatever it’s called. Always trying to get behind the scenes of this historical democratic struggle for the White House for the benefit of readers who come here to learn what makes American politics tick.

Which is why as soon as we learned of the latest endorsement of Rudy Giuliani, we immediately jumped on this story with our typical thoroughness.

According to a news release from the Giuliani campaign, the former New York City mayor has just been endorsed by Bo Derek. THE Bo Derek. Members of a certain generation may possibly recall a movie called “10.” No married man will ever admit having seen the film or even having an opinion about it, but we’re told it allegedly starred Dudley Moore.

Inexplicably, in the film Moore becomes fascinated by some young, apparently rather attractive woman played by Derek. The film also must concern classical music because, we hear, the song “Bolero” is featured prominently in one horizontal scene.

Derek is a longtime Republican who campaigned in both presidential campaigns of both Bushes....

when, truth be told, normally well-behaved young men vied viciously for the right to escort Derek from location to location. At one point even Josh Bolten, current White House chief of staff, had that duty.

“Rudy Giuliani,” the news release quotes Derek as saying, “is a problem solver with common sense leadership who made a tremendous and positive difference as Mayor of New York.” Like Giuliani, Derek is pro-choice.

But at Top of the Ticket we don’t just take a news release at face value. We dig and probe. So solely to uncover the truth, we invested a very long time in Web research on this Bo Derek person. There are, it turns out, many websites devoted to her, which naturally had to be checked out.

There is her official site, which has a photo gallery and a chance to buy her autobiography, “Riding Lessons.”

We learned at another site that she was born Nov. 20, 1956, as Mary Cathleen Collins in Long Beach, which makes this an important local story too. She likes swimming and windsurfing and horses.

We discovered that some men find her sexy. “As classy as she is sexy, Bo Derek is that rare Hollywood actress who just seems to get more and more attractive as the years go by.” Which is good to know.

We learned at another site that she is straight. We discovered from one that analyzes her inner feelings that “Bo Derek responds very much to the emotional tone and atmosphere around her.” Made a note of that.

There are many Bo Derek photo websites, including one that is said to show a famous shot from “10” of her jogging along a beach in a skin-colored swimsuit in very slow motion. Evidence at other sites suggests the actress doesn't always wear swimsuits at photo shoots near waterfalls.

There are sites lauding her national work against animal cruelty, especially the slaughter of horses. There are Bo quote sites: “Glorifying violence is terrible. Simulating sex is nothing—it’s something so impersonal really.” Or “Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping.”

There’s also a profile of Bo that quotes TV's "Hardball" host Chris Matthews, a onetime Democratic staffer, as saying, ""She has conservative views, which are unusual in Hollywood. She's very eloquent and makes a real presentation."

The same article quotes Bo commenting on America’s profound perennial problem with nudity, which some of you may have noticed if you tried to vote nude last time:

“You can have these really heavy-duty sex scenes with half-clothed actors doing really vulgar things up on a kitchen table or in a bathroom on an airplane; really heavy-duty scenes like that are OK. But take your clothes off and suddenly it's a big problem. It's a funny, prudish side we have. And it is so silly. We spend so much of our time nude. We're born nude and it just seems like the most natural thing."

All good points.

Which naturally brings us back to the fully clothed Giuliani campaign and its effort to attract votes from the never-nude conservative Republican base. You can read Giuliani’s 12 boring commitments to the American people for yourself by clicking here.

But, be warned, we’ve thoroughly checked and there are no photos of Bo in there.

--Andrew Malcolm

Photo: Bo Derek; Credit: Eric Draper / AP

Comments

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Well... seems that Rudy's campaign isn't afraid to sex things up to attract some attention... and neither is this blog. Humour, sex, mystery... hey wait a sec.. we're being seduced! I'll bet that if Rudy puts out a giant jar of sizzling angus burgers and has a scantily clad Bo ask people to guess how many there are in the jar, he'll attract even more than a heckuvalot of attention. Get some endorsements from Posh and Becks and Lindsay Lohan as well. "Conservative" seem to be learning "liberal" tricks... but they'd better watch out or we won't be able to tell the difference anymore.

(Ans: Well, that's Rudy's problem in the primary, isn't it? Proving he's conservative enough? And Jenna Jameson, the porn actress, endorsed Clinton, as reported here too. Wonder who's next?-AM)