"Lady Jerks of 2012: A Year in Review."

Today seems to be my day for finding screwy ideas in Slate. This one seems to be a twist on the old feminist bumper sticker "Well-behaved women rarely make history." I can't quite tell whether Amanda Hess is trying to encourage/facilitate female jerkiness or what. Yeah, there's the ancient problem of wanting to be liked, which is really only a problem if you want it too much and want it above other, better goals. It's perfectly idiotic to think that the solution to the excessive desire to be liked is to be unlikeable.

But, whatever... the women Hess recognizes as the "Lady Jerks of 2012" are: the CIA agent who complained that she shouldn't have had to share the Distinguished Intelligence Medal for finding bin Laden; Anne Hathaway, the actress who talked back haughtily when asked about the photographs that paparazzi somehow were able to take of the body part Hess refers to as "her vagina"; Julia Gillard, the prime minister of Australia who called some political opponent a misogynist; Taylor Swift, the pretty young singer who crashed a Kennedy wedding with her Kennedy boyfriend; and Susan Rice, who, as Hess would have it, lost out on getting to be the next Secretary of State because people thought she was “prickly,” “hard-headed,” “temperamentally unfit,” and “always right on the edge of a screech.” Hess writes: "The personality police eventually moved Rice to withdraw her name from the running." That's not what I heard!

"Despite the passage of time since second-wave feminism erupted in the late 1960s, we’ve somehow been thrown back to the demure girly-girl days of the white-bread 1950s."

"It feels positively nightmarish to survivors like me of that rigidly conformist and man-pleasing era, when girls had to be simple, peppy, cheerful and modest. Doris Day, Debbie Reynolds and Sandra Dee formed the national template -- that trinity of blond oppressors!"

Camille Paglia is displeased with Taylor Swift and Katy Perry.

Speaking of distractions...

... Taylor Swift showed up at a Kennedy wedding — she's dating Conor Kennedy — and was told to leave.

“They texted me an hour before the wedding and asked if they could come,” Vicki Kennedy said. “I responded with a very clear, ‘Please do not come.’ They came anyway. ... I personally went up to Ms. Swift, whose entrance distracted the entire event, politely introduced myself to her, and asked her as nicely as I could to leave. It was like talking to a ghost. She seemed to look right past me.”

She seemed to look right past me.... Why do I find that so funny?

ADDED: Was Swift invited?

Conor was reportedly invited solo to the wedding of Kyle Kennedy and Liam Kerr last Saturday — but never sent a response, according to Victoria Kennedy....

The wedding-crashing couple, despite Victoria’s protestations, apparently danced the night away at the reception without any further complaints.

A Swift spokeswoman denied the reports of any mixup, insisting the singer was definitely on the guest list.

“There is no truth to that,” said Paula Erikson. “Taylor was invited to the wedding, and the bride thanked her profusely.”

There are 3 separate etiquette issues here. 1. Should Swift have attended, given her degree of invitedness? I don't know all the facts, but more probably should have been done by Conor. 2. Once Swift arrived, should she have been confronted? Maybe not. Finally: 3. Afterwards, should one blab about the whole thing to the press? That question is easy: no. The clearest violation of etiquette is Vicki's in airing her grievances to the press and deliberately humiliating and embarrassing Swift. I love the way she claimed to have been polite and nice in her own impolite and not nice statement to the press. Going public and presenting yourself in a flattering light? Horrid!

He's a virgin, she's not.

Can this relationship work?

... it appears that the singer caught him in her web of seduction, which is made of cotton candy and pixie dust....

RELATED: Justin Beiber is now officially old enough to have sex, and his comment on that subject is: "I don’t want to start singing about things like sex, drugs and swearing."

The Daily News deftly juxtaposes pictures from the American Music Awards.

Check it out. It's like panels of a comic strip:

These pictures don't really relate to each other in the manner the sequence suggests, but the apparent story is hilarious.

In the first panel, Taylor Swift — the perfectly popular girl from whom a man once famously grabbed a phallic symbol — clutches her throat and looks with shock toward the second panel. In that second panel, American Idol also-ran Adam Lambert, clutching a phallic symbol, is angling back to get a look at the head going at his crotch. And, in panel 3, Jennifer Lopez, clutching a phallic symbol and looking quite angry, is falling backwards.

Juxtaposed, it looks like a story of sex and betrayal. In real life, the only intentional sex, simulated of course, came from Adam Lambert. He'd like you to believe he's fighting against discrimination:

"I do feel like there's a bit of a double standard in the entertainment community, on television, on radio... I feel like women performers have been pushing the envelope, especially, for the past 20 years. And all of the sudden a male does it and everybody goes 'Oh, we can't show that on TV.' For me, that's a form of discrimination and a double standard. And that's too bad."

The head in his crotch was female, by the way. Lambert subsequently canceled that discrimination by kissing a male.

Swift and Lopez weren't being sexual at all. Swift was expressing surprise — whether she felt it or not, we don't know — for beating out, as Artist of the Year, an artist whose big achievement this year was suddenly dying. And Jennifer Lopez was about to fall on what everyone feels compelled to refer to as her famous ass.

ADDED: The prime example of the womanly pushing of the envelope — in 2003 — reference by Lambert:

Kanye West gets rewarded for his oafishness with an appearance on the new Jay Leno show.

Let's watch his effort at winning back our affection:



I "live-blog" the clip:

0:35: The numbskull audience cheer like hell as if he hadn't just done something offensive... either because hey, he's a celebrity and they came to see celebrities and bask in their shining light or because some damned cheer like hell sign lit up.

0:53: Leno butters him up disgustingly, telling him how brave he is to come on the show in his time of tribulation.

1:15: West feels so bad because "I only wanted to help people, you know. My entire life, I've only wanted to give and do something that I felt was right."

1:47: Although West just said "I immediately knew in this situation that it was wrong," Leno gets all jazzed up by what he thinks is the probing question "So when did you know it was wrong?" I assume the conversation was planned, and West put one of his lines too early in the dialogue, and Robot Leno didn't even notice. Lameness.

2:01: West now says — with dull, flat affect — that he knew it was wrong when he gave the microphone back to "her" — say her name, idiot — and she didn't keep going. The audience laughs at this "joke," and Leno awkwardly progresses to the next (planned) question, which is, paraphrasing: What would your dead mother say?

2:42: West tries to show his hurt, giving us the cue remember that his mother died and to realize that it is terribly sad when one's mother dies. He asserts the theory that his hurt led to another person's hurt, as if his macho seizing of the mike from a teenager and outraged touting of his preferred pop star (Beyoncé) came from a place of grief over his mother's death. Feel sorry for meeeeeeee. Bleh.

3:05: West vows to improve so he can "make it through this life." Okay, he has groveled enough. Leno calls an end to what I assume is a planned, mapped-out PR routine. And the audience cheers inanely, on cue, once again.

The Joe Wilson spirit infuses Kanye West.

So Joe Wilson suddenly felt it was okay to yell out "You lie" while Obama was taking his glamorous turn upon the stage of a joint session of Congress. There was something that needed to be said and it couldn't wait until after. It just had to be said during and traditional etiquette be damned.

And then last night at the MTV Video Music Awards, the lovely, wispy Taylor Swift had just glided up to the stage in a bejeweled gown to accept the award in the Best Female Video category for "You Belong With Me"...

“Thank you so much!” Swift began. “I always dreamed about what it would be like to maybe win one of these some day, but I never actually thought it would have happened. I sing country music so thank you so much for giving me a chance to win a VMA award.”

Before she could continue, West broke in. “Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’ll let you finish, but Beyoncé has one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!” Kanye shouted to a mortified Swift and the speechless audience. And as quickly as he ran onstage — MTV cut away to show Pink applauding Taylor, and when they flashed back to Swift, West already had the mic in his hand — he was off, leaving a shocked Swift in his wake....

[A]fter Kanye handed the microphone back to Swift, her time was up, and MTV cut to a video featuring Tracy Morgan and Eminem....

Later in the show, Beyoncé did win for her video, in a better category, Video of the Year, so it's not as though MTV didn't agree with West's opinion. It just didn't agree with principles of logic — if Beyoncé's video was the Video of the Year, how was not the best in the lesser category of Best Female Video? — and it failed to realize that everyone watching wouldn't understand how the divvying up of awards worked in MTV world and keep their pants on until all the Moonmen were doled out.

Kanye West, like Joe Wilson, had to say what he knew to be true right when he saw the bright, shining truth of it. Lies must be denounced as lies at the moment of their utterance. Joe Wilson could not wait until Obama had gone through to the end of his extended remarks, and Kanye West could not allow Taylor Swift to speak uninterrupted for — what was the allotted time? — one minute.

Afterwards, like Joe Wilson, Kanye West apologized:

"I’m sooooo sorry to taylor swift and her fans and her mom. I spoke to her mother right after and she said the same thing my mother would’ve said. She is very talented! I like the lyrics about being a cheerleader and she’s in the bleachers! …………………… i’m in the wrong for going on stage and taking away from her moment!……………. beyonce’s video was the best of this decade! I’m sorry to my fans if I let you guys down! I’m sorry to my friends at mtv. I will apologize to taylor 2mrw. welcome to the real world! everybody wanna booooo me but i’m a fan of real pop culture! No disrespect but we watchin’ the show at the crib right now cause … well you know! i’m still happy for taylor! Boooyaaawwww! you are very very talented! I gave my awards to outkast when they deserved it over me… that’s what it is!! i’m not crazy yall, i’m just real. Sorry for that! I really feel bad for taylor and i’m sincerely sorry! Much respect!!”

Oh, yeah. Much respect. In post-You Lie times, your respect will come in the form of apologies the next day.

And did you notice "I’m sorry to my fans if I let you guys down!"? If... a nonapology. Because his fans might have loved it. Lots of folks loved Joe Wilson's "You lie" too.

Here's a 2010 campaign slogan suggstion: Joe Wilson: He's not crazy. He's just real.

AND: Here's Kanye's moment.