Fred Thompson has put manliness in politics back on the table. It started with a New Republic article a few weeks back, which said that Thompason appeal was in his gravelly voice and thick brows. However, the article explained that Thompson had only the thinnest of resumes and little drive. Though he might not be a man in real life, but he plays one on TV. That Law and Order image was doing wonders for his political career.
On Sunday, Maureen Dowd, never one to turn down an opportunity for a good man methapor, came back to this topic. She quickly dismisses his attempts to be Reaganesque and his waffling over dealing with Bin Laden. "Fred is not Ronnie; he’s warmed-over W. President Reagan always knew who the foe was."
Fred followed W.’s nutty lead of marginalizing Osama on a day when TV showed another creepy, fruitcake manifesto by the terrorist, who was wearing what seemed to be a fake beard left over from Woody Allen’s “Bananas” and bloviating on everything from the subprime mortgage crisis to the “woes” of global warming to a Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory to the wisdom of Noam Chomsky to the unwisdom of Richard Perle to the heartwarming news that Muslims have lived with Jews and not “incinerated them” to the need to “continue to escalate the killing and fighting” against American kids in Iraq.
Can we please get someone in charge who will stop whining that Osama is hiding in “harsh terrain,” hunt him down and blast him forward to the Stone Age?
You go, girl! That’s most manly stuff that I’ve read lately.
As I drove back from work at noon, I listened to them read the names of those who died in the World Trade Center. I’m still angry. I called a friend who was also in Manhattan at the time.
I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if our troops were sent to the caves of Northern Pakistan rather than to Baghdad where they are fending off car bombs and hopelessly holding back the violence? We need a little manliness, though that manliness may have to come from a woman. We also need smart manliness, which directs mighty blows in the correct direction. Is smart manliness possible? Is it an oxymoron?
Apt. 11d 
I wonder how the Pakistanis would feel about that. Pakistan is already a nuclear power.
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Oh yeah, not invading Pakistan because it has nukes makes perfect sense: invading Iraq because Pakistan (where the bad guys are hiding) has nukes is a little bit like cutting off someone’s legs fight lung cancer. Well, we can’t do anything about the lung cancer, but let’s do _something_.
I was listening to fiasco of the hearings and getting really mad. Bush has lead us into an incredible mess, and no one knows how to fix it. No one. I honestly don’t get why anyone wants to be presidents next. They are going to be handed an incredibly ugly mess, and they aren’t going to know what to do with it, either. We’re going to spend at least the next decade digging ourselves out of a hole we didn’t need to be in.
bj
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I just spent much of the Iran thread defending myself against the idea that one is evil, evil, evil to even think of bombing Iran before its nuclear program is operational. So, it tickles me to see Laura mentioning invading Pakistan (a nuclear power with a precariously positioned somewhat friendly regime). I’m waiting for all of the people who were dumping on me to come back and dump on her. Not that I actually want that to happen, but it seems inconsistent. Oh well. I suppose Laura might have in mind just leaning harder on the Pakistani government, but what if they said no, or what if the US presence destablized the entire country and the current regime were overthrown? Under the latter circumstances, even the capture of Osama bin Laden would seem a very small thing, just as the death of Saddam Hussein and his sons seems like a small thing to opponents of US involvement in Iraq.
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I also was very angry listening to the hearings this week. The idea that the very senators who voted for the invasion are now b!tching out the military?? For what? For not magically fixing the results of their bad judgment?
BJ’s right — whoever gets that job next is nothing but garbage detail. Cleaning-up-after-an-ill-conceived-house-party on a global scale.
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Can’t you just see the TV ad:
“I’m not a manly man, but I play one on TV.”
Heeeee!
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The problem, Amy, is that the only good solutions left require going back in time. It might actually not have been necessary to invade Pakistan, if we’d handled the invasion of Afghanistan correctly. We’ve been boxed out of all viable options, and only bad choices remain. Six years ago, we could have made better decisions. Instead, we had fools in charge, who lead us to disaster, and no one else with any power pointed out the emperor’s lack of clothes (and sense).
Jen — the only excuse the senators have is that they were lied to. I believe that, that they were lied to, but they let it happen, too. And, if they believe they were lied to they should be impeaching the liars. But, instead they were playing some kind of game at the hearings. And, yes, I agree that yelling at the people you _ordered_ to do an impossible job isn’t particularly useful.
bj
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PS: in the senators’ defense, they’re trying to get Petraeus to admit that he’s been given an impossible job, in the hopes that we can move on to something different. But, unfortunately they don’t really know what the different thing is (and can’t say, anyway, ’cause the senate doesn’t get to run the war). Some are trying to sell the politically expedient solution of abandoning Iraq, but I don’t think that’s going to work. So, then, what? If not for the politics, I think what we probably need to do is a real super surge, doubling or tripling the number of troops. But, I don’t know if we can, and I don’t know if it would work.
bj
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bj,
The problem is that one can always keep looking backwards to a date when if different choices had been made, things would have turned out differently. Just as we can say that things would be much better if the pursuit of bin Laden had been better managed in Afghanistan, we can just as well say that Clinton should have gotten bin Laden when he had the chance. It’s not a very productive avenue to go down.
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Amy P, it is, however, a very good thing to consider before taking the advice of those who brought one into disaster.
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There are too types of manliness in the world: crazy brave and those of posturing turds.
Its the crazy brave that are quiet and humble. You’ll never see them on TV but movies will be made about their exploits.
Politics is not for these men and never will be. They are leaders who lead by example and not by statements in the way politicians do without any further follow up.
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