No nerds here (Why Liberal Male Journalists Are So Nerdy & Feminized)

Inside The Beltway (Washington Times) ^ | August 1, 2003 | John McCaslin

[PJ-Comix]

We're glad to see, given all the talk this week about gay "marriages," that real men are back in Washington.

The September 2003 issue of the American Enterprise is all about men; the return of the manly politician, how Democrat and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill are different breeds, what women want from men, manly art, the hunting male, why maleness is back in fashion, how feminism has undermined masculinity and what President Bush, Donald H. Rumsfeld, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Dick Cheney all have in common.

[PJ-Comix]

When I think of nerdy feminized journalists, the name of Tom Oliphant stands out. Name your own choices for liberal nerdy and feminized male journalists.

[clintonh8r]

Aaron Brown, hands down winner.

[anniegetyourgun]

Michael Kinsley.

[PJ-Comix]

Almost all the male reporters on NPR. You ever hear their essays? I listed for laughs.

[wbill]

I prefer the term 'wussified' for some of these people. Feminized is just too delicate.....

Top 5 list?

George 'I'm so Cute' Stayontopofthis

Bryan 'Brokaw lite' Williams.

Stone 'Brokaw ultralite' Phillips.

Peter 'I hate America but where's my green card' Jennings

Any male person that would appear on 'The View'

[ClearCase_guy]

Tucker Carlson
Chris Matthews

[Lil'freeper]

the whole media love affair with John McCain. He created a fighter pilot ready-room in the back of his bus and told off-color jokes and brought these former high school nerds into the circle of the cool guy. They were so thrilled that one of the jocks was finally paying attention to them that they just swooned."

What a hilarious image!

[Destructor]

Liberal males in general are nerdy and feminized.

[retrokitten]

Someone has to correct me if I am wrong, but I think his name is Richard Engle. We used to watch him on the Baghdad WebCam all the time.

He didn't seem to have any idea that potentially millions of people were watching him get ready to do his reports live from Baghdad. We nicknamed him "The Pretty Chicken" in the Situation Room Live Thread, because he was always primping and fixing his hair and making sure he looked perfect before he went on air. He is more girly then most women I know.

I always had this image of him running and hiding in the bathtub of his hotel screaming like Ned Flanders or Nathan Lane in "The Birdcage" when the bombs started flying.

[PJ-Comix]

Chris Matthews

Matthews is too angry all the time to be categorized as a nerd. The funny thing is that the REAL source of his anger has nothing to do with politics. He is angry because he really needs a DRINK but can't have it unless he falls off the wagon again and gets another case of "malaria."

[New Horizon]

"...conservative men never felt the need to abandon their manliness. Liberal men, on the other hand, thought that was being enlightened.

*chuckle*

[Destructor]

"the whole media love affair with John McCain. He created a fighter pilot ready-room in the back of his bus and told off-color jokes and brought these former high school nerds into the circle of the cool guy. They were so thrilled that one of the jocks was finally paying attention to them that they just swooned."

This is a good example! This is the effect that you would think someone like McCain would have on a group of women.

[PJ-Comix]

This explains why the nerdy journalists HATE Bush. He represents the high school jock who would ignore the little nerds.

[southern rock]

This reminds me of the TV show "Murphy Brown" back in the 90's. That show had 5 main characters. 2 women and three ( I use the term loosly) men. All 3 male main characters were insecure, indecisive and complete crybabies. On any given episode any one of the male characters would whine, moan, cry, question himself, have a nervous breakdown, seek professional help, or just otherwise be ineffectual. The 2 female characters, needless to say, did not suffer these maladies. They were there to solve the mens' problems.

That show typified the 90's IMO. You can't have a decade where you replace Axl Rose with Kurdt Cobain, and Vince Neil with Eddie Vedder, and not expect some efeminization problems.

[skeeter]

I agree with you about Matthews. Ol' Grandad apparently has driven all the estrogen out of his system.

[IoCaster]

Terry Moron. A mincing, pouty pansy if I've ever seen one.

[PJ-Comix]

Imagine the news room of the New York Times.

[Lil'freeper]

I think McCain can't get the other jocks to pay him any attention- or respect, so he seeks it from the nerds. He's a wannabe. Women (most? all? some? conservative?) can see right through that kind of thing, hence no swooning from the she-folk.

[jazzlite]

So many of the leftist journalists seem effeminate..It is almost easier to name those who seem to be real men..All of the Fox guys seem to be real men and some on MSNBC seem, also, to be manly. If one goes to the print media, effeminate journalism is very easy to spot. As my husband often says when he reads our daily paper, "They are everywhere!" He considers himself to be a "real man." I tell him he needs to cancel this newspaper and go to the internet for news but he has resisted so far.

[Lil'freeper]

This explains why the nerdy journalists HATE Bush. He represents the high school jock who would ignore the little nerds.

Yeah, that confident swagger gives them nightmarish flashbacks. Muahahaha.

[Alberta's Child]

Miss Charen: "Because they're liberals . . ."

Mona Charen is wrong about this. It has nothing to do with political persuasion and everything to do with this particular line of work. Journalism by definition is an unproductive, sedentary business of "talking heads" (the "chattering class," as someone once described them) who are closer to entertainers than they like to admit.

Instead of putting together a list of the wimpiest journalists, let's try to put together a list of "masculine" ones. I'm sure the list will be quite short, and will include as many women (Ann Coulter, for example) as men.

[laweeks]

Al Hunt squats to do #1.

[nerdwithamachinegun]

I think I disagree with the characterization of what constitutes a nerd in this discussion.

I think that what is being refered to, rather lazily, is sissified nancy-boy girly men, not nerds.

To be a nerd is to be socially ungraceful, technically over-proficient, pedantic and generally harmless. It also can involve a bad complexion.

A character from a horrible NBC show called Rip Tide serves as a perfect example: Murray Bozinski.

If any of these assclown journalists produce their drivel with open source software compiled by themselves or build their own PCs or wear short sleeve shirts with a bowtie or can explain how fiber optic communication works then I'll concede that they are nerds. Otherwise, they are most definately NOT nerds.

[csvset]

Noah Adams, All Things Considered

Neal Conan Talk Of The Nation

Adam Felber, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

[Bob]

One word comes to mind -- metrosexuals.

[ChadGore]

"More Americans
get their news
from my ass,
than from any other ass."

[ought-six]

"Liberal males in general are nerdy and feminized."

That's right. Just look at the cast of the TV series "MASH". I mean, one can't get much more wimpy and wussie than Alan Alda and Mike Farrell.

[ICX]

I'm using the term 'journalist' loosely, but nobody's mentioned Miss Morford yet.

[Miss Marple]

Several years ago when I was posting on The Guild thread, we decided that your theory explained the disdain of the press for President Bush.

Don't most of them sound like members of the chess or art club making b*tchy little comments about the captain of the football team?

"He doesn't even get post modernism!"

"All he ever reads are the sports pages!"
"He won't even consider a vegan diet!"
"He doesn't like Judy Garland!"

This also explains Maureen Dowd...she is the nerdette who makes sarcastic comments while secretly having a crush on the guy. Sort of a grown-up Judy Blume novel. HA!

[Skooz]

"... how these journalists spent their high school years, which I assume was being stuffed into lockers by other males."

CLASSIC!! What a superb line.

[andy58-in-nh]

Yeah, I have to agree with the choice of Tom Oliphant of the Boston Globaloney.

He's one of those people that Howie Carr refers to as a "bow-tied bumkisser" and it suits him perfectly. On the other hand, the entire editorial staff of both the Globe and the NY Times have many such character types. I imagine the Globe's newsroom looking like a Hamptons' cocktail party or a Provincetown theatre soiree, if you know what I mean...

[Skooz]

the whole media love affair with John McCain. He created a fighter pilot ready-room in the back of his bus and told off-color jokes and brought these former high school nerds into the circle of the cool guy. They were so thrilled that one of the jocks was finally paying attention to them that they just swooned."

What a hilarious image!

It is also very perceptive and almost certainly spot on.

[Sloth]

A character from a horrible NBC show called Rip Tide serves as a perfect example: Murray Bozinski.

Wow, I thought I was the only one who remembered that show. The Screaming Mimi helicopter, the crappy robot (made be the nerd, I assume). It was sort of like a bad Simon & Simon.

Anyhow, I agree with your point about nerds. Nerdy does NOT mean effeminate. If anything nerds are intimidated by girls, not trying to be like them.

[retrokitten]

Sort of a grown-up Judy Blume novel.

LOL!! Too true!

[Sloth]

I think Terry Moran probably cries himself to sleep every day that someone says something bad about Helen Thomas. He's her journalistic gigolo.

[PJ-Comix]

Mona Charen is wrong about this. It has nothing to do with political persuasion and everything to do with this particular line of work.

Wrong! Years ago journalism was a manly profession. Back then the salaries were low and the typical reporter was a hard drinking sort of guy and there was a lot of camraderie in the newsroom. The police reporters actually did a lot of footwork and hung out with cops. Reporting back then was a lot different.

[Gorzaloon]

To be a nerd is to be socially ungraceful, technically over-proficient, pedantic and generally harmless. It also can involve a bad complexion.

I was a nerd in school.

I was also suspended twice for fighting. A "Nerd" can be an Alpha Geek, but not neccesarily a wimpy, bowtie-wearing punching bag.

Testosterone is our friend.

I suspect the leftist's "Little Problems" are probably due to a lifetime of chronic retraction in terror at their utterly dreadful women.

[OldCorps]

Sid 'Vicious' Blumenthal

[evilC]

Of all the NPR lot it is Garrison Keillor that pegs my acck-meter. His smarmy, self-satisfied, smarter (if not holier) then you attitude sums up liberalism perfectly.

[Miss Marple]

It changed during the 60's. It used to be that most reporters worked up from copy-boy to civic-meeting reporting to city hall and then, if they did really well, they became either a Washington correspondent for their paper of even, in a few cases, a foreign or war correspondent. Most reporters prior to the 60's had never been to journalism school.

Now journalism requires a degree and 4 years of indoctrination on the campus. That is part of it. Manly guys who might consider a journalism major look at who they have to hang out with and choose something else.

[sweet_diane]

"I think McCain can't get the other jocks to pay him any attention- or respect, so he seeks it from the nerds."

My thoughts exactly!

[PJ-Comix]

I once actually wrote a satirical play (okay, that itself sounds like a feminine activity but check out the play) about an actual encounter that Howard Stern had on the air with a very feminized radio reporter for the San Jose Mercury news about an article the reporter (Brad Kava) wrote. You can read the skit HERE.

[csvset]

Ms. Morford

[csvset]

He has a face made for radio. Kinda like a pug dog.

[Alberta's Child]

You are describing a beat reporter for a big-city newspaper before the 1960s. That description may have fit a few prominent people (Jimmy Breslin, for example), but in cases like that the guy who ended up in journalism probably would have been a cop or firefighter if he had his druthers.

The difference today is that most young males have a lot more career options than they used to. Those who can be successful in a trade or respectable profession can do so without having to climb too many barriers. Those who can't be successful in a trade or respectable profession settle for law school, journalism, and/or politics.

[sweet_diane]

funny!

[Reo]

"He's one of those people that Howie Carr refers to as a "bow-tied bumkisser"

Speaking of "bow-tied bumkissers, who was that bow-tied nerd who was the Defense Dept spokes"man" during the Clinton/Bill Cohen days? Contrast the Rummy operation with that dude and Cohen (an Alan Alda clone if ever there was one).

[steplock]

Hey! Quit insulting us NERDS!

Odds are you probably work for a NERD!

[anniegetyourgun]

It has also become the college major (along with education) that we used to laugh about when people were P.E. majors. It takes the lowest IQ and demands little of it.

[katana]

There's one thing that has always been nagging me about McCain's image.

Among his real peers, other Naval Aviators, wouldn't he be viewed as a Jonah (while on deck a bomb goes off under his wing but he survives and dozens of sailors are killed)? Then after just a very few missions he gets shot down, badly hurt, and imprisoned as a POW for five plus years. Doesn't that somewhat qualify as a "screwed the pooch" incident?

I know and respect that the man suffered terribly at the hands of the North Vietnamese, but on the great totem pole of aviators and pilots his exploits don't exactly put him anywhere near the top. Yet he's treated by the media as the greatest war hero since Audie Murphy and the best pilot since Chuck Yeager.

I think you're right that McCain never and couldn't get the kind of adulation he craved from his actual peers and as a substitute (rhymes with?), he sucked up everything he could get from the natural born weenies mincing up and down the aisle of his campaign bus.