Dowd: Gotta Lotta Stigmata (Political Contest to be a "Real Man")

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/24/opinion/24DOWD.html

John Kerry is going to announce his candidacy for the presidency next week (who knew?) standing in front of an aircraft carrier.

That's a relief. If he had used the usual town square or high school gym backdrop, what would we have thought about his manliness?

Dropping his heroic military service into almost every speech has not been enough, nor has mounting his Harley in a bomber jacket whenever a TV camera's near.

Three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star in Vietnam should trump one lackadaisical Texas National Guard record, but we live in an age when "reality" is defined by ratings. So the issue is illusion: can Senator Kerry match President Bush's ability to appropriate an aircraft carrier as a political prop?

--snip--

Shouldn't real men be able to admit they made a mistake and need help? Rummy & Co. bullied the U.N. and treated the allies like doormats before the war, thinking they could do everything themselves, thanks to the phony optimistic intelligence fed to them by the puppet Chalabi. No wonder they're meeting with a cold response as they slink back.

Shouldn't real men be reducing the number of Middle East terrorists rather than increasing them faster than dragon's teeth?

[MoonAndSun]

1. John Kerry is my 2nd choice, after Howard Dean,

but I feel he is making a mistake by using the aircraft carrier. Why should he feel that he needs to one-up bush*?

About the rest of the article, this is my favorite part:

"In George W. Bush, people see a contained, channeled virility," said Erica Walter, identified as "an at-home mom and Catholic writer." "They see a man who does what he says, whose every speech and act is not calculated."

"Yeah. Nothing calculated about a president's delaying the troops from getting home and renting stadium lights so he can play dress up and make a movie-star landing on an aircraft carrier gussied up by his image wizards, at a cost of a mil."


These repuke women made me :puke:

[The Zanti Regent]

2. Oh, yawn, it is L'idiote Dowd

Once again, her "I hate Clinton" shill sounds again.

So dull. So boring. So Predictable...

[realFedUp]

3. I don't know why there is so much whining from the right....

If rightwingnuts felt like using an aircraft carrier
as a prop was laughable...maybe they should have
whined more when Bush used it AND the troops.

Worse you can Kerry is a copycat. Nah, nah nah nah nah....