Free Republic

by Mark Finkelstein June 28, 2006 As a veteran Couric watcher, I've recently come to follow [without actually watching] doings at The View, since Katie's replacement Meredith Vieira was for years a member of the show's cast. For those unfamiliar with it, The View is an all-female televised coffee klatsch and gabfest of which Barbara Walters is the creator, partial owner and a co-host. The View has a distinct liberal tint to its patter. And as we know, one of the tenets of feminist theology is that women have a right to whatever kind of body size they want, free...

From the age of nine, Jessica Roberts hid inside baggy T-shirts which became her sanctuary. A large girl, for years she went to extraordinary lengths to prevent anyone glimpsing the flesh that she had come to loathe. Now 21, she smiles ruefully at the terror that the thought of a school swimming gala could once induce: Jessica is no longer ashamed of her size and is one of a growing number of young American women who are proud to flaunt their ample flesh in public. "I've had a string of boys. I'm happy," says Jessica, who is studying for a...