Excerpts from Greenwald's book

[FourScore]

Tough Guise
by Glenn Greenwald

The following is adapted from Glenn Greenwald's new book, Great American Hypocrites, released this week.

Central to the right-wing mythmaking machine is the depiction of their male leaders as swaggering tough guys in the iconic mold of an American cowboy and brave, steadfast warrior. Above all else, Republican leaders are invariably held up as exuding the virtues of traditional American masculinity – courage, physical strength, "regular guy"ness, and most of all, a willingness and ability to stare down America's various and numerous enemies – in war, if necessary – and defeat them through superior strength.

The reality, in virtually every case, is the opposite. Those who end up as leaders of the right-wing movement in America have nothing in their lives to demonstrate any actual courage, physical strength, or any of the warrior virtues they desperately strive to exude. Their only "toughness" or masculine "tough guy" credentials are from cheerleading as they send others off to fight wars, never to fight in any themselves. Just like John Wayne, their masculine toughness comes from the costumes they wear, the scripts they read, the roles they play – never from the reality of their own lives.

While Republicans have ensured that virtually every asset of America bears the name of Ronald Reagan – including a glorious battleship, the USS Ronald Reagan – right-wing tough guys who never spent a day in the military protested and mocked endlessly when it was announced, in 2005, that a submarine would be named after Navy veteran Jimmy Carter. Carter is a graduate of the Naval Academy, having attended during World War II. In the Navy he became a submariner, serving in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets, and he rose to the rank of lieutenant. He was personally selected by Admiral Hyman Rickover, known as the "Father of the Nuclear Navy," for the top-secret nuclear submarine program, where Carter enrolled in graduate work in reactor technology and nuclear physics, and served as senior officer of the precommissioning crew of the Seawolf, America's second nuclear submarine.

Despite a history of military service that few right-wing warriors can come close to matching, conservatives heaped endless scorn and ridicule on the decision that a nuclear submarine would bear Carter's name. At National Review alone – filled to the rim with absurd, swaggering, pretend tough guys – Steve Hayward referred to the "oxymoronic Jimmy Carter attack submarine"; Jonah Goldberg published an e-mail spouting that "naming this boat for Carter resounds with irony" and another stating that "the USS Jimmy Carter will be *The Best* submarine in the Navy, precisely because of the jokes"; and Goldberg himself wrote:

"You do have to feel sorry for the crew of the USS Jimmy Carter. I'm sure they'll be very well qualified and all that. But as several readers have noted, they're just never going to hear the end of it."

Goldberg continued: "If a Russian sub attacks undefended ships, will the USS Jimmy Carter immediately boycott the U.S.-Russian softball game in Guam?" His colleague Kathryn Jean Lopez sneered: "I can't get over how ridiculous the sound of a Jimmy Carter attack sub is. The enemy trembles."

In the world of right-wing Republicans, actual bravery, courage, and military service are irrelevant. What matters is a willingness to strike the pose of a warrior.


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