Here's an assertion. Rona Ambrose, Federal Environment Minister, was appointed at that position not because of her environmental credentials but because the Conservatives decided that her reasonable good looks were a useful distraction from the fact that the Tories intended to do nothing for the environment, despite it being a strong value in Canadian polls.

Agree or disagree, enter the alleged furor caused today when environment groups were hung out to dry in the heavily right leaning CanWest Media group.

Preceding an accurate and unflattering portrait of Conservative climate change policy, environmental groups including Greenpeace, and Climate Change Action asserted that Ms. Ambrose would be known more for her hair than her enivornmental record.

The (UN Climate) Convention has seen some outstanding Presidents and some ordinary ones. Canada’s Rona Ambrose was neither. She might have the best hair of any COP President, but she will be remembered as the worst COP President in the history of the climate convention.

Should environmental groups stick to the issues and avoid personal attacks? Yes. However, that is a simple statement that ignores a key right wing strategy - the glossing over key issues with superficialities in order to gain voter share. Ambrose was not given the Environment portfolio because of her green qualifications, yet for the past 10 months her face has been paraded before mainstream media continuously, while her party bought time to announce their environmental non-action.

However ill-advised the environmental groups spin may have been, the issue does beg the question - what group is being more degrading to women? The party that at every opportunity props an attractive neophyte before the camera for their own political gain? Or the groups that have the audacity to point that fact out?