Newsweek Having it Both Ways with Sexy Callista

Yes, touche to Newsweek, staying laser-focused on the new marketing strategy plumbing the female demographic with still another girl cover. And what a brilliant cover it is. If NewsBeast is ultimately interested in playing every angle and buttering up everybody while building its own brand, it does so perfectly here by:

1. Ripping Callista Gingrich as a Stepford-haired, female prototype from Central Casting with all the GOP trappings.

2. Ripping the stereotyping of Mrs. Gingrich as a Stepford-haired, female prototype from Central Casting while also providing specific inoculation to Callista who does make good use of her sexuality and can definitely use this high-profile act of insulation from corporate media against the killer charge she was having an affair with Newt at the same time he was beating up Clinton over Lewinsky.

3. Still circulating a sexy-as-hell piece of Palin-replacement newsstand-candy designed to give Newsweek’s super-popular, equally-red, equally “hands-on-hipped” “Palin home workout attack”” cover a run for its money.

Applying a blanket feminist argument saying they can do no right, this cover and the article also does an extraordinary job of sucking up to the rest of the GOP candidate’s wives, surely with visions of dozens of exclusive interviews down the road.

Playing up the sexual innuendo while hugging the sanctimonious high ground, by the way, I also love the accompanying photo illustration nailing the overlap in Washington between sex and power (perhaps most reflective of the tie-up between Newt and Callista — no airhead or bimbo at all, but a true D.C. operator) the White House clearly sighted between her legs.

(photo: unattributed online. photo illustration: Michael Elins)