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In some private circles, Gwyneth Paltrow may have been judged a fool when she named her daughter Apple, but with a nod to Mark Twain, she finally opened her mouth and removed all doubt.

Speaking at an event with Barack Obama in Hollywood last Thursday night, she began with, "You're so handsome that I can't speak properly," and in one fell swoop assumed the blushing, vaporous caricature that strong intelligent women and even feminists have been fighting for decades.

Hillary Clinton echoed the same irrational sentiment, apparently trying to avoid being pigeon-holed as an accomplished, stalwart matron of politics.

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Speaking at the Economic Club of Chicago, Clinton detailed her decision-making process after Obama offered her the position of Secretary of State. “I said no, and then I said no again, and I said no again, and finally I just gave in,” Clinton said. “As I said to somebody the other day, I told my husband no, and I wouldn’t get married, and no, and just gave in. So I have a history with charismatic, attractive men who just wear me out.”

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    I have heard that Putin is just such a man (and more). Perhaps she may not be the best choice for diplomatic missions, or even more important political positions that require rational thought.

    She has also indicated she would wait to decide on whether she will run for the presidency, saying, "And I will have to be convinced that I have a very clear vision with an agenda of what I think needs to be done, and that I have the experience and know-how to lead..."

    Still unconvinced. Still waiting for a vision. Like a writer, waiting for some inspiration, or a singer waiting for a song.

    Gwyneth Paltrow is a singer now. And the song she sang last week about President Obama ended like this:

    “It would be wonderful if we were able to give this man all of the power that he needs to pass the things that he needs to pass.”

    Luckily, her first comment completely negated any possibility we would take seriously anything else she gushed.

    She’s obviously just a silly, love-smitten little girl, like Hillary Clinton, whose childish plastic "reset" button is still a classic, worth replaying and replaying (for a laugh, but not for a lesson in diplomacy, sadly.)

    Giving Obama the sort of imperial power of a modern-day Caesar just brings up visions of Rome burning or that sadistic and narcissistic Caligula Gaius. (I certainly hope that isn’t the vision Hillary is waiting for!)

    And yet Paltrow was dead serious when she said it.

    That’s the problem with people who don’t think. They get lazy, and want someone else, preferably someone good looking and charming, to do their thinking for them.

    But they’ll just as easily settle for a short, dark-haired man with a squared mustache, in a pinch. The problem arrives when the person they trusted to think for them has evil thoughts, and they’ve awarded him (or her) the power to back them up, but that much is obvious to rational, thoughtful individuals.

    Gwyneth and Hillary are really testing the limits of tolerance for any sensible female, because, as well-known females, they give the rest of us such a bad rap.

    Then again, Chris Matthews and his leg frissons are not at all female. So maybe the irrational, air-headed fawning is just a liberal thing, after all.

    Good thing all women aren't so easily won. We still have Malala Yousafzai, who, at seventeen, just won the Nobel Peace Prize, to look up to.

    She is the young Pakistani woman who was shot in the head by the Taliban for her vociferous support of women’s education.  Despite her age, he's got more sense than those others. She even took President Obama to task for his counterterrorism war efforts, during her visit last year to the White House.

    I'm thinking it wasn't quite the reaction he was expecting from the young woman.

    You go, girl.