Where in the World is Bridget McCain?

Shaker Redstar emails:

I don't know if you've seen the most recent cover of People. It's the McCain family. Thing is, in at least my CVS here in Boston, the family is situated such that Bridget is the only one who is not visible above the magazine holder that says "People" on it on which the mag sits. That is, there's a plastic barricade that coincidentally covers here while the rest of the white family beams out at me while I wait to pay for my allergy meds.

I don't know how People is displayed elsewhere, and I have never really noticed the racks it sits in before (and I often buy the mag), but after the whole Jolie/Pitt twin debut, and past conversation on the seeming lack of coverage of Bridget, I immediately noticed today that she was the only one initially missing from the cover, until I was able to get close enough to pick it up and look it.

If it's a coincidence—and it could be one only insomuch as Bridget was the specific family member to be masked by the proprietary "People" display rack, which has been in use for ages and will therefore certainly be considered during cover composition—it's quite an unfortunate one.

To be quite clear, I don't think the McCains have anything to do with this editorial decision—nor with, as Redstar mentions, the relative lack of coverage of Bridget on the campaign trail this election. In this Scholastic article, she says she's glad to have the opportunity to stay home this time: "Bridget said she enjoys supporting her Dad, but is thankful she gets to stay in Phoenix going to high school with her friends." That doesn't strike me as particularly outrageous; I would have felt the same as a teenager. And if the McCains are keeping her out of the spotlight because, last time around, she was was at the centre of a despicable Karl Rove-orchestrated push polling operation about McCain's "illegitimate black child," I'm inclined to believe their concern is less about his career than protecting their daughter from more such ugliness.

This one lays squarely in People's lap. There's no doubt they've got a color problem—and they need to do something about it tout de suite. It doesn't matter whether they intended to diminish Bridget on their cover, or merely failed to consider what message that would send. Either way, it's a mess. Get it together, People.