Miss California Carrie Prejean gets to keep her crown, will focus on her official duties

Okay, so Carrie Prejean keeps the crown.

I’m here in Palm Springs and watched the entire press conference with Donald Trump at the helm at Trump Tower. To his left were Keith Lewis and Shanna Moakler, co-executive directors of Miss California USA, who were singing a different tune than 24 hours earlier when they were poised to replace their pageant winner.

To his right was Carrie who said she is going to focus on her pageant duties and not be a spokesperson for the anti-gay marriage movement which had made her its heroine after  she came out against same-sex marriage during the Miss USA pageant.

“I’m not going to be speaking out against same-sex marriage,” she said. “I’m going to resume my duties as Miss California but also stay true to who I am. We will see how we will balance the two. … I’m ready to move on and move forward and be the best Miss California I can be.”

So is it over now? Will she go away? I don’t much care but I’d have a lot less problem with her if she had just answered the marriage question and gotten on with it. Instead, Carrie said the question cost her the crown (not true) and aligned herself with the National Organization for Marriage which is also responsible for those ridiculous Gathering Storm commercials.

Carrie would not be in the news at all – despite her controversial answer – had blogger Perez Hilton not been the pageant judge who asked the question then later on his blog called her a “dumb bitch.” Perez was interviewed on CNN after the press conference and said: “She forgives me and I forgive her for her ignorance. Carrie’s a sweet, very simple, simple girl. There was no hidden agenda, that question could have been answered by any of the five finalists.”

In her opening statement, Carrie said that in answering the question “I was very careful to articulate in saying that I did not want to offend anobdy and that this is how I was raised and this is what I believe a marriage should be – between one man and one woman. Not only do I hold this belief, but as Mr. Trump said, the President of the United States, the Secretary of State, and any Americans agree with me in this belief. Immediately after the pageant Judge #8 (Hilton) began a cultural firestorm in the media.”

Before the press conference, additiional topless photos of Carrie surfaced and were racier than those revealed last week. She explained that the images were taken between poses and she was unaware of them.

“We have determined that the pictures taken are fine, so we’ve made a determination that everything we’ve seen, we’ve made a determination that they’re acceptable and in many cases very lovely pictures,” said Trump.

Poor Carrie. How does all of this happen to her?