Antonella Barba and the World War II Memorial

Mar 05, 2007- Permalink

Considering that the media, especially the right-wingers over at FOX News, love to create moral outrage, I’m surprised that they’re not all over the fact that some of the racy photos of American Idol contestant Antonella Barba were taken at the World War II Memorial in Washington D.C.

Some of Barba’s photos show her in a wet t-shirt, tugging at her panties (with one or two possibly bottomless) while wading in or reclining on a monument where people go to pay respects to their loved ones and the other men and women who fought in WWII.

The stories I’ve seen on TV seem to focus on how she’s a victim of a friend who made private photos public or how all teens these days have nude photos of each other. Surprisingly, they don’t seem to be going for an easy attention-getting hit of playing the offended party. Couldn’t Wolf Blitzer interview some outraged vets? Couldn’t the FOX News gang…oh wait, Idol airs on their sister network and makes tons of money for Rupert Murdoch. As Gilda Radner’s Emily Litella character would say, “Never mind.”

Funnily enough, the real outrage over the issue is coming from the blogosphere’s writers and commenters. The old media entertainment reporters can trash the gossip blogs but while Mary Hart breathlessly tells us all the sordid details of Anna Nicole Smith’s funeral, Todd over at I Don’t Like You In That Way has this to say about Barba’s photos:

If he’s alive, be sure to show them to your grandpa. I’m sure he’d be happy knowing that the freedom he fought for while holding his guts in with his helmet allows a spoiled whore from New Jersey to desecrate his national monument.