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?