Enough with all those silly questions that Torrie Clarke has to answer about progress on the battlefield. Amy Finnerty looks at the reason Clarke has really been catching flak -- her fashion choices:

Like a hothouse flower growing in a bed of moss, Victoria Clarke, the Pentagon spokeswoman with a penchant for nonregulation attire, has been attracting admirers and puritanical detractors. It's hard to believe, but the Defense Department reportedly has had to waste time fielding comments about the assistant undersecretary's jackets. The impressive Ms. Clarke delivers her crisp war briefings while seeming oblivious to the fact that she's wearing chirpy violet, preppie pink-and-green, or Mondrian color blocks from the neck down.

Women in public life are more likely than men to be judged by their appearance. Hair alone could be the subject of a poly-sci dissertation (Margaret Thatcher's hair spray and Hillary Clinton's headband come to mind). On the surface, there are exceptions to this gender divide, but they don't really hold up.

Al Gore was ribbed for overthinking his wardrobe (remember all those low-contrast suit-and-tie combinations?), and President Bush's penchant for cowboy accessories is viewed by some as downward striving (for political effect). But purely visual fashion disasters are rare and morally neutral for men in public life; Brooks Brothers just doesn't make men's suits in magenta. For men, in fact, being too pulled together can be suspect. But for prominent women, every innocent fashion misstep is harshly judged. Even Mr. Gore's casual-dress phase was blamed, fairly or not, on a woman, who was said to have been his image adviser.