Letters to the Editor
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Please forgive
Please forgive if someone's beat'n me to the punch with these but how'bout "Myth Thing" or "Faux-Hawks".
Of course I'm just kidding...unless you like them Glenn, in which case I'm totally serious.
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not the first time
I don't suppose anyone's reading these by now...but, Glenn, it's worth noting that this fetishizing of manliness by distinctly unmanly geeks is hardly new.
Take a look at Heinrich Himmler sometime. Or Eichmann. Inside the 3rd Reich you find a number of the bully boys were hopeless nerds whose savagery was probably in direct proportion to the inadequacy they felt as men.
And let's not forget the number of Nazis who were very likely closeted. More than a few, from the evidence.
Now, at least some of these guys were anything but hypocritical: Reinhard Heydrich, Goering, and Hitler himself, who rescued one of his wounded officers from open ground, under fire, during WWI. It would have saved us all a lot of trouble if someone had capped Adolph then...but no. Hard to question his physical courage, though.
Goering was a fighter ace, and he may have become a dangerous eccentric in later life, but it's also hard to question his physical courage, at least when he was younger.
Heydrich was an interesting case... a frightening, attractive, savage man (but somewhat effete, on the evidence) who never hesitated over doing the dirtiest work, he was killed early in the war. But not before he'd done a number of things that quite a few neocons wish they could do in the Middle east right now. The Butcher of Prague is a model for many of them, if only they knew it.
But, I've always thought the exceptions proved the rule: many of the men at the highest levels of the Nazi regime were deeply disturbed people...and very likely disturbed over questions of their masculinity... and over their sexual identity.
Why *we* have to continue to suffer from these guys' reaction-formations is the question....
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too much credit
Kerry lost because he didn't counter the Swiftboaters in any way at all.
You guys are giving the Swiftboaters way too much credit. Kerry lost because the public saw him for what he was: an elitist phony. He comes back from Vietnam and lies about his fellow veterans. He "throws away" his medals in protest, but we find out he really didn't; he threw away someone else's because he might need his some day for political reasons.
He built his entire campaign around his Vietnam service (witness the totally bogus "band of brothers" BS at the Dem convention), which is a dangerous thing to do when you're better known as the guy who lied about war crimes, which also makes Kerry stupid.
Then there was "I voted for it before I voted against it." That damned him in the public's eye way more than any swiftboat commercial, because it cemented what everyone sensed about Kerry already.
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Last one, I swear
Perversion
The hijacking of America's values for political advantage -
William
Trace that organ to a fat sow like Hemingway, and its absurdity is immediately apparent.
La voce del destino is an attribute of the almighty alone. Missapropriate it, and you'll always get what you deserve.
-- William Timberman
William, understand that I wasn't complaining about you basically repeating what I had written. Hell, if it was out of bounds to basically repeat what someone else has written we would have no more books to read, or even music to listen to beyond what has already come to pass.
I was flattered, actually - because I've long respected and enjoyed your input here - that you were in agreement with me, and that you were reiterating the theme of the subject we both replied to in your own entertaining and innovative way.
Your innovative and no holds barred way is once again on display in the sentences you invented that I've quoted in this post.
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Paul Dirks and Newsmax
While what you say about past performance being a good indicator of future behavior must be a good cautionary bit of wisdom, it's not a slam-dunk rule. After all, the National Enquirer was correct about Monica's blue dress.
Check out that Newsmax sound clip: It is undeniably Bill Clinton's voice saying that he was offered bin Laden in 1996 by Sudan but he turned it down.
Clinton's public reaction to the publication of what he thought was a private speech is proof that it's true; he didn't say, "That's not me." He said, "You're misconstruing my words."
Yet there's no way to misconstrue what is clearly there.
To simply dismiss it because it appears on Newsmax shows you to be both simplistic and small-minded.
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Cowards in the Closet
Here is a proposed title:
Cowards in the Closet:
How Wimpy Warmongers and Cheating Moralists
created the Myth of the Manly Republican
- Guilty Bystander
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@ondelette
What I do see is an argument that our comments are of low quality. Given that the subject is description of the faux masculinity of the right wing, such an argument comes perilously close to an irrelevant attack on your opponent rather than the opponent's argument. What is such a logical fallacy called?
Ad feminem?
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Titles?
How about:
Tough Guy, Soft Gut
or:
The Right-Wing Swing
with the subtitle:
"The difference between presence and posturing in the conservative view of masculinity".
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@Titus Pollo
You guys are giving the Swiftboaters way too much credit. Kerry lost because the public saw him for what he was: an elitist phony. He comes back from Vietnam and lies about his fellow veterans. He "throws away" his medals in protest, but we find out he really didn't; he threw away someone else's because he might need his some day for political reasons.
OK, now wait a second...
I'm not disagreeing with you about Kerry... but why didn't people glom onto Bush's obvious phoniness in the same way? He bought that ranch right before he ran for office, just for photo shoots. He actually is the pampered New England-educated mamma's boy that represents the liberal stereotype.
The guy has so much money he could buy and sell my family five times over and has had that much for his entire life. How does anyone in America identify with this guy?! He doesn't seem like someone "I'd like to have a beer with", he seems like the spoiled, humorless lout I'd avoid at every opportunity.
I really just don't get it.