Is B.C. Premier Christy Clark a MILF or a cougar?

It's clearly an inappropriate, even vulgar question. A MILF, of course is an acronym for 'Mother I'd like to f@#$' and a cougar is an older woman who goes after younger men.

But, last week, during an interview on a Vancouver Island radio station, Premier Clark received such a question.

What's worse, is that she answered it.

As chronicled by the Vancouver Province, 98.9 JetFM host Drex asked Clark what it was like to be a MILF (apparently 'Drex' was asking on behalf of a listener).

Here's the premier's response:

"You know, I take that as a compliment … you know, it’s one of those things. Better a MILF than a cougar … so tell him I said thank-you."

The Province newspaper goes on to quote Clark's press secretary who said the premier was "shocked" by the question and "responded accordingly and simply wanted to move on."

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But others aren't as forgiving — Clark's response elicited a traditional and social media debate that went into the wee hours of Friday morning.

"That two-sentence exchange has, it seems, given the Clark-haters enough fuel to carry them well into the new year," the Victoria Times-Colonist editor David Obee wrote in his newspaper.

"Personally, I think she did the best she could with an unexpected, inappropriate, insulting, stupid question. She answered it quickly and moved on. That’s not good enough for the critics, who have had time — something Clark did not have — to think of all sorts of things that Clark could have said or done."

Veteran Global TV reporter Keith Baldry agreed that the question was a disgrace but Tweeted that Clark "should have shut [the host] down" instead of "trying to a score a point."

And then there's blogger Laila Yuile who wrote an excellent piece suggesting that Christy Clark brought on the question herself.

Yuile references a July 2010 interview with the Vancouver Sun — when Clark was a radio talk show host — where she talks about her favourite television show, Manswers, and recounts an episode where they were asking how large breasts would actually have to be to crush a beer can.

"And people are attacking the [98.9 JetFM] radio host for an insulting ,vulgar and inappropriate question?" Yuile writes.

"On a radio station much like The Fox, or Rock 101, both of which [Clark] has shown her sense of humour on in the past, documented in sound bytes and photos for the world to see?

"Give me a break."

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Certainly the MILF question should not have been asked.

But Clark should not have had answered it; she should have said 'I'm not answering that, let's move on.'

And to Yuile's point: would anyone even think of asking Alberta premier Alison Redford that question?

Would any radio station dare ask that question to one of Canada's senior federal cabinet ministers such as Rona Ambrose or Leona Aglukkaq?

Probably not.

And if they did, they wouldn't be getting a response.

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