Seriously, now...

If your 15-year-old daughter was posing for photographs, and the photographer talked her into taking off her shirt (which your daughter had no intention of doing upon arrival) and if those photographs were published in a national magazine, would you or would you not be calling the cops and reporting said photographer?

But hey, apparently if you are Billy Ray Cyrus and if your daughter is Miley Cyrus, whom you carelessly thrust into the limelight at a very tender age and if the photographer is the famous Annie Leibovitz (of whom Miley says, "You just can't say no to Annie..."), then I guess you allow your daughter to take the blame and apologize to all the fans.

I'm sorry, folks but a 15-year-old is still a child who needs parental guidance, no matter how talented she is. Where were mom and dad during that photo shoot? Apparently, they were there, nodding approvingly. Why wasn't Billy Ray standing up to Annie and saying, "No, you will not photograph my minor daughter half naked."

I heard a news commentator say this morning that it was Vanity Fair's fault. No it wasn't. It was Miley's parents' fault. If you put your minor child in the public eye and allow them to be scrutinized, ogled, criticized, worshiped, glammed up, etc., this is what happens. Let society treat your kid like a piece of meat, and sooner or later, the media will take it all the way to porn. Okay, arty porn, since it's Annie Leibovitz, but it's still porn in my book.

Wake up, Billy Ray. It's your daughter who's going to wake up one day with the achy breaky heart, and you're not going to be able to fix it.

--Sparki

BTW, I was going to link over to the Vanity Fair site, but there is this über creepy shot of Miley and Billy Ray on the front page that looks...well...just don't go there. Billy Ray Cyrus isn't making very good decisions about what positions his daughter is photographed in. And the article will just horrify you as it reveals that Miley's grueling schedule hasn't included a more than one consecutive day off since Christmas 2006 (she is FIFTEEN, folks!), that Billy Ray and his wife Tish let Miley watch Sex and the City, and that Miley admits to just not having any emotions to speak of.