Man Overboard

I have a new theory about what's behind everything that's wrong with the Bush administration: manliness.

"Manliness" is the unapologetic title of a new book by Harvey C. Mansfield, a conservative professor of government at Harvard University, which makes him a species as rare as a dissenting voice in the Bush White House. Mansfield's thesis is that manliness, which he sums up as "confidence in the face of risk," is a misunderstood and unappreciated attribute.

Manliness, he writes, "seeks and welcomes drama and prefers times of war, conflict, and risk." It entails assertiveness, even stubbornness, and craves power and action. It explains why men, naturally inclined to assert that "our policy, our party, our regime is superior," dominate in the political sphere.

"It seems that Ruth listens to Rush." ~ Milhous

The Castrati (Feminization Update) The Voice of the Neuter January 27, 2006
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_012706/content/feminization_update__the_voice_of_the_neuter.member.html

"..."It is the voice of the neuter. I mean, that in the grammatical sense: 'a. Neither masculine nor feminine in gender. b. Neither active nor passive; intransitive,' and in the biological sense: 'a. Biology Having undeveloped or imperfectly developed sexual organs: the neuter caste in social insects. b. Botany Having no pistils or stamens; asexual. c. Zoology Sexually undeveloped.' You hear this soft, inflected tone everywhere that young people below, roughly, 35 congregate. As flat as the bottles of spring water they carry and affectless as algae, it tends to always trend towards a slight rising question at the end of even simple declarative sentences. It has no timbre to it and no edge of assertion in it. The voice whisps across your ears as if the speaker is in a state of perpetual uncertainty with every utterance. It is as if, male or female, there is no foundation or soul within the speaker on which the voice can rest and rise. As a result, it has a misty quality to it that denies it any unique character at all. It is the Valley Girl variation of the voices that Prufrock hears...

"Above all, it is a sexless voice. Not, I hasten to add, a 'gay' voice. Not that at all. It is neither that gentle nor that musical. Nor is it that old shabby lisping stereotype best consigned to the dustbin of popular culture. No, this is a new old voice of a generation of ostensible men and women who have been educated and acculturated out of, or say rather, to the far side of any gender at all. It is, as I have indicated above, the voice of the neutered," and whoever wrote this great piece has come up with a name for them: the American Castrati. "This is not to say that the new American Castrati of all genders live sexless lives. On the contrary, if reports are to be credited, they seem to have a good deal of sex, most often without the burden of love or the threat of chlldren [sic]... [I]t is only to say that this new voice that we hear throughout the land from so many of the young betokens a weaker and less certain brand of citizen than we have been used to in our history."

Who is he talking about here? If I maybe just take a brief departure here as though I'm a professor and ask for, who is he talking about here? Moderates. Moderates. People aren't sure of themselves. But they think, "Well, you know, Rush, I'm for that, but I wish we would do it smarter. I wish we would. I just wish we would be more sensitive in how we go about prosecuting the war on terror. I don't want to be mean to anybody." They won't take a stand on anything until the majority is coalesced and then they get behind that, whatever it is. Neither... (interruption) That's right: "conflict resolution" graduates. That's who they are. They have no confidence. They've got nothing firm or solid that they believe in, and this is exactly what I am attempting to capture in my caricature of these people when I go into what Stan in Las Vegas accused me yesterday of a lispy, "gay" voice.

"If you can write in this tone," and, of course this idiot in the LA Times can, "you can become a third level columnist for the Los Angeles Times. With a little luck, over time, you might even rise to the level of second string columnist for Vanity Fair. Should the country so lose its mind and elect another Clinton, you could even become a White House speech writer. For now you can hear the poster child for this sexless cohort in Joel Stein's dulcet voice quavering and halting and rising to a falling lilting question as Hugh Hewitt exposes the nothingness at Stein's core in question after quiet question." Of course he was on Hugh Hewitt's radio show and he admitted -- he admitted! -- essentially he had no clue what he was talking about. He just doesn't like war, he just doesn't like killing, he doesn't like death, and he thinks if it will help bring these people home safely, then he will say he doesn't support the troops. "What Stein has said is what his whole cohort has said in response to questions of honor, duty, country. It's the standard-issue answer, and will be their standard-issue epitaph: 'Whatever.'"

Whatever.

[snip] Click above link to read entire commentary.

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Ben Stein compares the Castrati (like Joel Stein) to the Saints in Armor: http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=9336

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American Digest - The Voice of the Neuter is Heard Throughout the Land http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/006007.php#006007

"..If you have ever wanted to hear a classic radio interview cooly calculated to have the interviewee reveal himself in all his naked smallness before a national audience, you owe it to yourself to listen http://www.radioblogger.com/#001332 and read the audio and transcript http://hughhewitt.com/archives/2006/01/22-week/index.php#a001136 of Hugh Hewitt interviewing Joel Stein. You owe it to yourself to listen to this segment -- and you'll need to listen in order to understand what comes next. You don't have to listen to all of it, although it is hard to turn the ear away. Just listen attentively to the voice of Stein himself for a minute or so.

Go ahead. I'll wait here." ... [snip]

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Rush Limbaugh Thursday quotes The Chief of the Patriotism Police (3/16/06)
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_031606/content/quotes.member.html

Excerpts:

"The media thinks only reason Bush would be talking about Iran is to get his poll numbers up. He wouldn't be doing this because there's a real threat in Iran -- no, no, no! Wouldn't be anything substantive to this!"

"I think the main reason that the left and the media want Bush to be driven by polls is because they are not manly. They've been feminized, they live inside the Beltway, and that makes them uncomfortable with Bush's manliness -- because manly men lead."

"Unmanly men -- wimps, men that have been feminized -- wait for the safety of consensus, and that's what a poll is. A poll that shows us a majority of something -- a consensus -- gives you an escape hatch."

"It's so bad out there in Democratic circles, Dennis Kucinich (D) is winning 'most eligible bachelor' contests."

"Lincoln Chafee (R) is a genuine mental midget among mental retards in the United States Senate."

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Unmanly Men Fear Bush March 16, 2006
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_031606/content/rush_is_right_.member.html

".....We played sound bites all over the first hour in case you missed it, of various members of the media saying this is unbelievable.

"The polls say the American people don't want us in Iraq. They don't trust it. They want to get out of there, while the president says he's now saying we're going to have more preemptive strikes! He's rattling his saber against Iran, and now he's got this major offensive on Iraq. This is crazy. Is he not listening to the polls?" So we get from these people that they are insistent that leaders govern by polls because it's their poll. You see, they consider themselves the fourth branch of government. They're trying to influence policy here, and they think they've succeeded with their constant negotiate barrage of news over the last number of years about Iraq, that they've convinced the American people that Iraq is bad, a mistake, shouldn't go, shouldn't have gone and ought to get out.

They pretty much admit this and are very happy about it. They've been trying to prove for the last ten years that they still have that old monopoly power that used to exist before that damn new media came along. Now the new media's come along and busted up their monopoly, so they've been working hard for five years to create an anti-war majority in this country, and now that they've done it they can't believe the president is ignoring it! They just can't believe it. It doesn't compute with them. Well, let me explain it to you as I did right as the previous hour ended. One of the reasons -- and I think it's the reason that the left, the media, the Democrats -- want Bush to be driven by polls, is that they, the left and the media, the Democrats, are not manly.

I know that they're not manly. They've been feminized. They live inside the Beltway. They've been feminized by the radical feminist movement for who knows how many years now. They are not manly, and that makes them uncomfortable with Bush's manliness. They're threatened by it because manly men lead. (They may not ask for directions all the time, but they lead.) They need to go someplace even if they don't bother to ask where (laughing). They're going to go. They are confident in their own beliefs. They take risks to assert those beliefs. If I may throw myself in this category, like I courageously and bravely, against amazing opposition and odds, stuck to my position on the ports deal.

See, unmanly men -- wimps, men that have been cowed, men that have been feminized -- wait for the safety of consensus, and that's what a poll is, because a poll that shows us a majority of something, a consensus gives you an escape hatch. "Well, I was only doing what the poll said! I was only doing what the American people wanted.: You know, when all thing falls apart. I'll give you an example. Jack Bauer doesn't give a hoot in the world about polls but this new wimp president on "24" is totally driven by them. Now, who's manly and who's not? This new president on "24", he's totally cowed and he's cracking up now and it isn't going to be long before the vice president and the secretary of homeland defense actually conduct a coup to take over the government and CTU.

But it's a great example. Jack Bauer wouldn't lead by polls. Hell, Jack Bauer doesn't even follow the rules! He just leads, and that's what Bush is doing. He's just leading, and it threatens them. It threatens them. They want him to be more like them, consensus builders, consensus followers because when it all blows up, you've got an excuse. "Well, I was only doing what the American people wanted me to do," blah, blah, blah. That's why in private, so you find aside from, you know, whatever policy differences people have, Bush is envied, I think, and I think he's greatly admired in at least that one characteristic, and probably many more. ..."

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