Via the boss emeritus, as impressively pithy a statement of “authenticity” politics as you’ll ever see. In fact, this one goes a step beyond even what Tina Brown said last week. At least she conceded that conservative women were actually women, if (according to her) not feminists.

Oh well. Minority conservatives have been getting this for years. Your turn, ladies.

At a Democratic gathering over the weekend, Sontany said of women Republican state lawmakers: “You have to lift their skirts to find out if they are women. You sure can’t find out by how they vote!” State GOP chairman Chris Devaney quickly issued a press release calling her comment “inappropriate and disrespectful” and demanding that various Democrats denounce Sontany.

In her office down the hall from the gritty Legislative Plaza press room, we found Sontany sitting glumly at her desk and wishing we wouldn’t ask her about any of this. “I would just as soon see this not have all the legs that apparently it’s going to take,” she says. “I guess it’s a slow news day.”…

But Sontany adds: “That was a glib, off-the-cuff remark that I made that I really wish I had not done. It was not one of my better thought-out statements and I did not mean it to offend. If I have offended anyone, I’m certainly sorry that I did.”

Coming soon from Sontany: Demanding that Tim Scott and Allen West be checked for using bronzer. Exit question: If the rhetoric’s this hot now, how bad will it get if that Palin/Thatcher meeting comes off?