On January 21, 1993, I looked at a grotesque caricature of 12-year-old, newly inaugurated first daughter, Chelsea Clinton, in a major national newspaper. I have never picked up the nasty rag since, in spite of the constant query of my peers: “Did you happen to read blah blah blah in The Times?”

So horrified was I, the 33-year-old mother of an eight-year-old daughter, at the sight of an exaggerated nose and metal-encumbered mouth, a severely pulled back bun (her idea? No way) viciously drawn by some smug, self-righteous, yeasty, earth-vexing buttock, that I became a new kind of feminist.

Without a doubt, I previously identified with the bra-burning, goddess-encyclopedia-writing, organic-gardening, terra-firming crowd. However, I had no idea how fierce in me was the mother lion who would take the first opportunity to aim a nuclear-powered flame thrower at the head of any artless, fly-bitten, hedge-pig who would hold up a girl child to ridicule in order to sell a few feculent newspapers, simply because her parents had borne her into privilege.

“Hands off, plebeians!,” my heart cried.

I haven’t recalled that day without a 20-point rise in my blood pressure since, and I’m now a grandmother of a boy who, by god, will know better.

Ever since the moment, late last week, when I became aware of Paris Hilton’s response to presumed Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s tacky stab at the substance of her being, my subconscious has been chanting “You go, honey lamb!” over and over again.

I have underwear older than Paris, and shoes by the pound more mature. I have books and paper clips and pencils left over from a decade before she emerged from her mother’s generous belly. I look at her and see a baby. A young, lovely woman who can’t buy a pack of chewing gum without being criticized for her choice of flip-flops.

So John McCain uses her as a political ping-pong ball in his vicious little game. He likens Democratic front-runner, Barack Obama to Paris Hilton in terms of her vacuous celebrity. He takes a cheap shot at a young person to whom he’s never been introduced, who has never hurt a hair on his wrinkled, old, flatulent cranium.

Paris’s satirical, no budget Funny Or Die piece has been viewed, as of this writing, by more than six million people. In the short video, she satirizes both herself and McCain, and then takes the opportunity to propose a hybrid energy proposal as sharp, clever, and no-nonsense as any we’ll see this election season.

Brava, Miss Missy, I say! Bravissima, profunda!

Hooray to Chelsea for her graceful, public re-emergence during her mother’s excruciating campaign. Cheers to Paris for her valiant, hilarious nose-thumbing communiqué to those who would trivialize her very existence!

I celebrate every young woman who has the chutzpa to stand up in front of the stupid masses and make any kind of statement at all. In this day of wannabe idols, models, chefs, survivors, nannies, kids, parents, surgeons, politicians, and plumbers, it is nothing short of inspiring to experience the courageous self-exposition of the young, the beautiful, and the notorious who have nothing –- and everything –- to lose.

You go, girls.

No.

You know, girls. Illustration by Emberly Modine

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