The Polygamist Wives: The Road Tour

The polygamist wives, a motionless group seated on wood chairs, their eyes strangely averted and removed, their voices thin and expressionless, hair meticulously and identically upswept with braids, dressed in crisp, long, pastel prairie dresses, were on The Larry King Show last night, responding (or not responding) to his questions as if programmed. Each would say no more than, “I want the children ... I stand with the others ... I am not aware of any marriages between an older man and younger girl.” It was an eerie hour with them out-stepping the Stepford wives.

Never smiling, speaking briefly when a question was put to them, they objected that state troopers, after being alerted that young girls were being forced to have sex with older men, removed hundreds of children from the compound and kept them apart from their mothers. The women denied being exposed to the sexual activity, each saying, “I am unaware of it.” Larry King didn’t ask the obvious question: is there cloning at the ranch?

There’s much that’s unclear, but what’s certain is they’re not reading O at the compound. I’m hoping they’ll go on other TV shows as I’d like to see Oprah try to reason with them and ask the gentle, but probing, questions, which could be followed by their cooking with Martha Stewart, who’d be ideal for updating those sherbet-colored dresses, by which time they may be ready to face Stephen Colbert.