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Still promoting

California beauty queen Carrie Prejean continued promotion for her book, “Still Standing: The Untold Story of My Fight Against Gossip, Hate and Political Attacks,” while withstanding the embarrassment of a steamy tape she made being leaked to the press the week of the book’s launch.

But, she reveals in her book, some of those who have criticized her for being too sexy are the same high-ranking pageant officials who pressured her to vamp up her looks.

In the book, Miss Prejean said Miss California Pageant Director Keith Lewis pressured her to get breast implants after physically examining her hips and breasts while she was wearing a bikini at his request.

“He told me the pageant would pay for it and it had to happen soon,” she wrote. “He also said he knew a doctor in Los Angeles who could give us a discount.”

She said Mr. Lewis would also follow her into dressing rooms, where she would strip down to her underwear, to watch her change clothes. Miss Prejean said she didn’t think he ever meant anything sexual by it, because he was gay, but that doing these things sent the message that “you’re mine now, and I’m going to fix you, and shape you and mold you however I want.”

Another official, who later turned on her, she said, ordered her to dye her hair the same shade of actress Gwyneth Paltrow.

Miss Prejean also recounted an occasion in which Miss USA co-owner Donald Trump pitted the pageant girls against each other, asking them to say who was “hot.” Miss Prejean said he divided them “between girls he found attractive and those he did not,” causing some of the young women to sob after he left.

Mr. Trump denied Miss Prejean’s charge.

“Carrie should be ashamed of herself,” the billionaire developer said. “Certainly I would never do a thing like that because it would be too hurtful. I don’t stand the ones that are less attractive to one side, and the beautiful ones on the other side. It was total nonsense. … I don’t even know how she came up with an idea like that.”

Her critics, including Mr. Lewis, have since used her decision to get breast implants and model sexy outfits to call her a “hypocrite,” among other things, for her conservative beliefs.

Many wondered whether she would cancel her book tour after the celebrity gossip site, TMZ.com, began reporting the existence of a video Miss Prejean recorded of herself engaging in solo sex acts as a teenager. But, she didn’t. She owned up to the tape and called it the “biggest mistake of her life” in book promotion stops on Fox’s “Hannity” and ABC’s “The View.”

Death and terror

Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent, has called the massacre at Fort Hood a “terrorist act” and a majority of likely voters agree.

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