I hope there were others fortunate enough to catch the madcap ranting last night on "Scarborough Country" about how the just-released "Superman Returns" has reimagined Lois Lane as a floozy who can't keep her legs shut and Superman as an effeminate pansy. [Here's your spoiler alert!] The latest addition to the Superman legacy depicts Lois as a single mother, living in sin with the man she believes to be the father of her child. Of course, little does she know that Superman is the actual father. Radio talk show host Debbie Schlussel exclaimed in outrage: "Not only is Lois Lane a single mother, but she's a slut ... I don't think that those are good values or a good message to send to the children to whom this movie is being very heavily marketed."

But apparently Lois Lane isn't too preoccupied with being a "slut" to ride the space shuttle or win a Pulitzer for her reporting. (What a truly, truly awful example of a young woman's competence and drive to deliver to kids.) Perhaps even more offensive, Schlussel argued, is that the movie centers on how the intrepid news reporter is too busy with her career and "riding the space shuttle," Schlussel exclaimed, to marry. In fact, Lois makes a point of stating that she's against marriage. This all sends young viewers a dangerously deluded message, Schlussel said, that "single motherhood is glamorous, you win a Pulitzer Prize."

Schlussel's tirade on the wimpified Superman of course led the "Scarborough" segment. Before commercial breaks, Joe Scarborough tossed his audience gripping teasers like this one: "Does the new Superman have the man of steel portraying a gay globalist and Lois Lane as a nasty slut?" Schlussel never actually voiced the conclusion that the new Superman is gay, but all the while it read as the underpinning to her outrage. In fact, the evidence mounts up against Superman: He has taken a five-year leave from Earth to contemplate his feelings, and that darn cape is no longer bright red. ("It's a muted burgundy tone that you'd probably see in 'Men's Vogue,'" Schlussel exclaims.) The extreme conservative train of thought goes like this: The new Superman explores his feelings; therefore Superman is emasculated; therefore Superman is gay.