This guy has POTUS written all over him...
Posted on 04/07/2006 9:40:04 PM PDT by CAWats
Sorry, but I wouldn't vote for a drag queen in the White House
Helen Rumbelow
THIS WEEK WE GOT to see how Americans think it would be to have a woman in the Oval Office. In the new TV drama Commander in Chief, which has just started in Britain, Madam President is more than 6ft tall, talks in a gravelly voice and has a mouth so inflatably large and laden with lipstick that voters would never have any trouble reading her lips. In short, Geena Davis does not play the first woman to lead the free world, but the first drag queen.
Of course the show makes great play of this girls-on-top fantasy. There is a sharp exchange between Davis and a rival who questions her ability to lead. “Well, not only that,” she mocks him, “but we have that whole ‘once a month will she or won’t she press the button’ thing.”
He responds nastily: “Well, in a couple of years you’re not going to have to worry about that any more.”
And there is a rather nauseating moment when the President’s young daughter spills her drink over mommy on the way to the inauguration speech. You know, the average pressures of balancing work, life, the national budget and your baby’s Ribena.
But never once in the tumultuous process of taking office does Davis betray any emotion. She remains cool, clipped, aloof and vaguely unlikeable. Although the programme-makers do their feminist best to show a woman succeeding at being in charge, in doing so they unwittingly identify the problem of being a female politician. They are drag queens of a sort, their femininity a mask, their humanity hidden.
Take the lunch I had with a minister when I started to cover politics. Here was a woman I had never met, but found irritating on television. She seemed cold, at best a little “nannyish” and dull, at worst patronising. I am hardly giving away clues to her identity here — how many women in government can you think of who do not fit this description? So imagine my surprise when she approached, swearing like a trooper at her lateness, a smile making her almost unrecognisable. On every point I had got her wrong: she was warm, very funny and surprisingly passionate about her cause.
I came away disturbed by my bad judgment of character. How could I have been so turned off by her public persona, but so bowled over by her in private? Yet the more female politicians I met, the more I encountered the same mystery — alter egos so different and so much more likeable that it was difficult to understand why they were kept concealed. When the demeanour of these women was criticised in conversation with friends, I would try to persuade them that really, underneath, they were fantastic. They didn’t believe me. It was, as I observed those suffocatingly safe performances in the Commons, hard to believe it myself.
Now, everyone separates their home and work selves to some degree. But the change is normally subtle: when you see a male politician droning on in public, it is a near certainty that he is a dullard in private. For many women in power the opposite is true — their work selves are the kind of disguise that would give Oscar-winner Geena Davis a run for her money.
I know why they do it. Their gender means their status is more in doubt, the scrutiny upon them greater, the margin for error smaller. They cannot afford to do a Mo, or an Edwina — careers sunk on a surfeit of “character”. So they keep to the line, and keep their jobs. But it also keeps them back. When David Cameron this week mouthed off about the UK Independence Party (“fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists”), it made him seem strong. Tony Blair, as his advisers at the election realised, is at his most convincing when sweating with panic among a hostile studio audience.
For a leader to be truly engaging, it is not enough to be good at his or her job. They have to reveal something of themselves, something for their public to connect with on an emotional level. That is why Bill Clinton is such a consummate politician, and why his buttoned-up wife Hillary — the current best chance of a real Madam President — is not.
We will have true equality when the word charisma is used about women in power, not just men. One day we won’t just aspire to have a woman in the White House, but a human too.
See ya later
Drag Queen or not, Rudy is an American Hero. Definately not my pick for president but I have much respect for him. There is a place in the US government for him.
http://jednet207.tripod.com/PoliticalLinks.html
Me too and NO I could never vote for "him"!
Your definition of "hero" must not be the same as mine.
This guy has POTUS written all over him...
I did too.
So, how's the weather up there ?
=running away=
"Rudy bashing is so tiresome."
The man is a liberal. What can one say about a "republican" who John McCain is ten times more conservative than?
No McCain, Rice or Giuliani (on the republican side) in 2008, please.
Rudy may be more "likable" than Hillary Clinton... Not to mention, he
looks better in heels. But those calves of his could use some lipo. LOL.
Most of them don't seem to have any femininity left. Laura Bush is a pleasant exception, I thought, well generally, the jokes were kind of an aberration. She comes across as being a nice person despite all those years in the spotlight.
I've watched women in the workplace since the great liberation and even before. Some of my mother's friends which was way before feminism seemed cold in retrospect, but maybe that is being unfair since I was young and pretty self-centered. It's kind of an enigma to me. Some are perfection itself in clothes, makeup, and demeanor, while others aren't particularly attractive, don't take great pains with hair, dress or makeup, but are smart and good enough at what they do that it doesn't matter.
It's kind of the same with males, too, not the drag queen part, but the mask, whether they be politicians, bosses or employees. It's hard to get to know the person behind the mask if there is one left. Sometimes there really is, but often a good part of themselves is still masked from so many years of conditioning. They never cry either, not that that is necessarily a good thing.
I didn't have the leisure to analyze things so much when I had to keep a frenzied schedule, but there are still some really nice ladies still out there, most of them are older, but a few are young. It's refreshing to discover that.
I was talking to my granddaughter whose friend will graduate from college this year and go either into police work or social work. I was speculating on how that was going to affect her outlook/worldview being around the downside of life so much. One wonders if they know what they are getting themselves into.
Whether I worked or loafed, I always had built-in protections against the darker side of life, sought out beauty in nature, music, built a safe place inside myself to compensate for it.
While you're at it, ask Rudy about his immigration politics while he was Mayor.
Giuliani sued all the way up to the Supreme Court to defend the city’s pre-911 sanctuary policy to thwart a 1996 federal law decreeing that cities could not prohibit their employees from cooperating with the INS.
"Oh yeah?," said Giuliani, "Just watch me." The INS, Rudy claimed, with what turned out to be grotesque irony, only aims to "terrorize people."
Very poor choice of words, Rudy.
Though he lost in court, Rudy remained defiant to the end.
On September 5, 2001, Rudy'a own boys---his handpicked charter-revision committee---ruled that New York City could still require that its employees keep immigration information confidential "to preserve trust between immigrants and government."
Six days later, on Sept 11, 2001, several foreigners who had overstayed their visas participated in the most devastating attack on New York City that our country had ever seen.
Why do you consider Rudy as being a liberal? Have you read his resume? Have you lived in the East and seen him in action as Mayor of NYC and managing the largest disaster in the history of the United States?
Just curious.
Were they working in NY City?
Pro-abortion, pro-gay rights and pro-gun control. You tell me.
"Will Rudy's well-deserved 9-11 glow be enough to blind conservatives from the truth that he's essentially a Manhattan liberal on every issue but national security? There's gay rights, abortion, affirmative action, even video rental late fees. The first three might be smoothed over during the primaries, but can a pocketbook issue be so easily dismissed?"
"Will Rudy's well-deserved 9-11 glow be enough to blind conservatives from the truth that he's essentially a Manhattan liberal on every issue but national security? There's gay rights, abortion, affirmative action, even video rental late fees. The first three might be smoothed over during the primaries, but can a pocketbook issue be so easily dismissed?"
National Defense is most people's issue they find most important. If we are blown to bits does abortion, affirmative action, etc going to matter. We will all be dead. However, I will not vote for him because of abortion rights, but using national security is not a good idea for putting the kaput on Rudy not getting the nomination. We need to say his negatives and not promote his positives so much. Just keep that in mind...national security is number one issue for people.
What does she think of the drag queen in Buckingham palace? :)
"Some short men ADORE tall women."
Whew, that's good to hear!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.