Essentially, Jones has decided she will be whatever anyone wants her to be — vixen, virgin, victim — to draw attention to herself and the many products she endorses.He went on to compare her to tennis player Anna Kournikova as just an empty suit.
Why? Why be so unkind to a young woman who has done nothing but succeed with class and grace throughout her career? I can't prove it, but I suspect that what's at play is the same irrational disdain that causes people to despise Tim Tebow and Carrie Prejean. They're good people who are trying to live according to the values prescribed by their Christianity and the secular world hates them for it. Their willingness to share their faith and values publicly is an indictment of a secular culture that devolves daily into deeper levels of sleaze and violence. If Jones had been involved in the debauchery taking place in the Olympic village she'd probably be ignored and the media would turn its attention back to women in bikinis playing volleyball on the beach.
Rob Doster at National Review offers this opinion:
Naturally, Jones was stung by the coverage, making an emotional appearance on the Today Show the morning after her loss and offering a passionate self-defense. “I have the American record. I am the American record holder indoors, I have two world indoor titles,” she said. “Just because I don’t boast about these things, I don’t think I should be ripped apart by media. I laid it out there. I fought hard for my country and I think it’s just a shame that I have to deal with so much backlash when I’m already so brokenhearted as it is.”They're far better at being human beings, too, I might add.
No, like Kournikova, Jones is merely a world-class athlete who has failed to check the right boxes to satisfy the Times’s sensibilities.
As this episode has made clear: They might not be champions, but both Jones and Kournikova are far better at their craft than Longman is at his.