(proposed new outfit for lady TV journalists)

ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser infamously took issue with network colleague Hannah Storm’s red go-go boots/plaid skirt combo earlier this year, calling said ensemble, “œa horrifying, horrifying outfit…way too short for somebody in her early 40’s or maybe 50’s by now.” Kornheiser was reprimanded by his employers, but not without ESPN.com ombudsman, the recently MIA Don Ohylmeyer opining “(Storm’s) choices for attire are not helping either Storm or the network…if anything, they distracts the audience from interesting content professionally presented.”

You know who else seems unusually weirded out by Storm’s clothing? Besides the Taliban?  The Big Lead’s Jason McIntyre, who in addition to tweeting and posting on TBL about Storm’s “tight, short dress and knee-high black boots” prior to Wednesday’s Heat/Celtics tilt, added further observations earlier today ;

According to a source at ESPN, Storm™s colleagues in the arena that day couldn™t stop talking about her outfit selection “ walking onto the court for the team™s shoot-around looking like you™re ready to go clubbing “ and one person at the network said, œTony Kornheiser made her a martyr.

Our source says that it™s as if Storm has free reign to wear whatever she wants- while other women hear from their superiors when they wear something on air that may be construed as a bit over the line. Supposedly, Hannah was banned from wearing the bright red boots after the Kornheiser incident. Will she have to shelve the knee-high black boots, as well?

McIntyre insists the above controversy is “getting plenty of play on the web”, but that seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The most offensive thing about Kornheiser’s gratuitous diss of Storm wasn’t that be was ridiculing a teammate — folks at the Washington Post got used to that a long time ago — it’s that his critique essentially amounted to, “she’s too old to pull it off”. But really, what planet are the fellas in question living on where Storm’s less-than-X-rated getup somehow provokes so much unease and/or resentment?