Things will be explained in more detail below the fold, but I have to summarize the diary. So here goes.
There is a line between hotness and insane. For want of another metric to measure it, we're going to use Neil Patrick Harris' explanation (as Barney Stinson on "How I Met Your Mother") of the Vicky Mendoza Diagonal.
Explanation - below the fold...
Disclaimer: this probably applies to men too. But I've never evaluated men on this scale, so I'd appreciate any women or gay men to confirm if it's true for men too.
Looking at the diagram above, you see that a woman is allowed to be just a little crazy if she's a little hot. But the hotter she gets, the crazier she can get away with.
The converse applies too: if any crazy woman (or more importantly: her avid support) is going to pass herself off with her hotness...
...she has to be above the line. If she's THIS crazy, she needs to be at least THIS hot to overcome the handicap. Simple as that.
This is the Vicky Mendoza Diagonal.
The line, incidentally, is named after a woman that would "play jump-rope" with it.
She's shave her head. Then lose ten pounds.
She'd stab me with a fork. Then get a boob job.
The danger comes when the hotness stays the same, but the woman in question just gets crazier. So let's look at Governor Sarah Palin and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann together...
Global warming's a hoax. Kids shouldn't watch Aladdin because it promotes paganism. We don't need to save the planet because that's what Jesus is for. The Vice President, a job I am auditioning for, changes the nation's policies.
Oh, and in Bachmanns case: hiding behind a hedge to spy on protesters, even though her bodyguard gives away her location (thanks to gsadamb)...
The more we get to know these women, the more they drift below the Mendoza Diagonal and ever closer to the Shelly Gillespie Zone.
Trust me: you don't want to know...