While watching CBS anchor Katie Couric interview ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame on last night's '60 Minutes,' we couldn't help but notice a few things. Couric is way harsher on chicks than on dudes. Plame looks an awful lot like 'Sideways' star Virginia Madsen! Couric does not like being out-effervescenced on camera. Plame very clearly wants to be taken seriously, and should be. And yet. She does her first major television interview in four years wearing hiphuggers and dangly earrings. Before you jump all over us: This is the same as a man conducting an interview in shorts.

That said, is it fair that, because Plame is a woman, her looks are fair game? Is it fair that, as a looker, she's taken less seriously? Of course not. But life's not fair, sister.

Given these limited parameters (which we plan on tweaking when we're elected to chair the universe), we really do wish Plame had gone with a more professional look, if not because this was a story that deserved zero distraction from the serious issues at hand, then because, unlike us, there were probably plenty of people out there watching who don't know that a woman can both be sexy and be better at their jobs than they are.

Anyway! Takeaway points: