Certain commentators and bloggers on Tuesday were all outraged or snickering or both. The reason: John McCain, in a campaign stop at the Sturgis bike rally, “jokingly” suggested his wife ought to enter the event’s biker beauty pageant–a contest known for nudity and sexually suggestive stage acts.

But across the proverbial pond, a veteran model who’d appeared in dozens of topless/bottomless stills in the 1990s is now the first lady of France.

Mind you, there are differences between the two situations.

Carla Bruni had retired from that sort of public exposure before she became a political wife. Cindy McCain already was a political wife when her hubby made his joke, which was applauded by the Sturgis audience but jeered and mocked elsewhere.

But a bigger difference is context. The French edition of Elle is a far different space than the Buffalo Chip Campground.