Real men
don’t wear costumes
by Gene Lyons
Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful,
and so are we.
They never stop thinking about new ways
to harm our country
and our people, and neither do we. "
—George W. Bush, Aug. 5, 2004.
If nothing else, it’s the job of politicians in
this fallen world of
Democrats and Republicans to keep us citizens
entertained. Both
presidential candidates have been doing their
patriotic best. President
Bush’s malapropisms are a constant source of
wonder. Me, I’ve been
trying to decide which classic" Saturday Night
Live" sketch the
presidential contest most resembles, "Quien Es
Mas Macho" or "The Raging
Queen." If you don’t recall, the "Quien Es Mas
Macho" skit featured a
mustachioed Bill Murray as an excitable Hispanic
quiz show host.
Contestants speaking bad ninth-grade Spanish
answered which was more
virile, "a librarian" or "Senor Lloyd Bridges,
investigador submarino."
(Bridges played a skin-diving detective on TV’s
"Sea Hunt. ") Even more
politically incorrect were Dan Ackroyd and John
Belushi as gay 18 th
century pirates on the good ship" Raging Queen,
"bragging about their
manly deeds, tossing salads and volunteering
to be flogged.
Still on the defensive about Bush’s own maritime
adventure, last year’s
illadvised" Mission Accomplished" aircraft carrier
stunt, the president’s
handlers were clearly thrown off balance by John
Kerry’s landing in Boston
Harbor with his Vietnam crewmen, a poignant bit
of stagecraft. Unlike Bush,
the Democratic candidate had enough sense not
to appear in uniform, turning
a patriotic photo op into bathos. Real Men, see,
don’t play dress-up.
So strong was the imagery coming out of the Democratic
convention that
even Kerry’s photo in a NASA "clean suit," looking
like a spermatozoon
out of Woody Allen’s "Everything You Wanted to
Know About Sex, But Were
Afraid to Ask," failed to generate laughter.
(Note to Kerry: No costumes,
uniforms or specialized garb between now and
November, even a Red Sox cap.
Especially no cowboy hats. Let Bush play Marlboro
Man.)
Republicans countered with as vicious a smear
against Kerry as we’ve
seen since—well, since the last time George W.
Bush ran against somebody
with a higher Testosterone Quotient: the 2000
South Carolina primary,
when little gremlins hinted to suggestible Moron
Americans that John
McCain’s years as a Vietnam POW had left him
psychologically unfit, and,
oh, did you know he had a black child? (An adopted
daughter from
Bangladesh.) As "The Daily Show’s" Jon Stewart
put it, maybe they had
him confused with Strom Thurmond.
Thanks in part to McCain’s lingering anger, the
so-called Swift Boat
Veterans for Truth succeeded mainly in reminding
voters of the 2000
smear. A Real Man, particularly one who’d taken
a playboy’s leave from
his own National Guard duties back in the day,
would renounce such
tactics. Not Bush.
But let’s get back to the silly stuff, shall we?
The question of which
candidate is more masculine exists purely in
the realm of TV imagery, a
leftover of Newt Gingrich’s campaign to portray
Democrats as "the
enemies of normal Americans." It’s the kind of
cartoon thinking we all
fall into part of the time—and stupid people
pretty much all the time.
Quick now, which state’s natives are more virile,
Texas or
Massachusetts?
Oh, really? Did you know that NFL Hall-of-Famer
turned Radio Shack
pitchman Howie Long, dubbed "the manliest man
on earth" on his fan club
Web site, grew up around Boston? So did Oakland
Raiders teammate Lyle
Alzado. Broadway choreographer Tommy Tune, meanwhile,
hails from Texas.
So does actor Patrick Swayze, who began his career
as a ballet dancer.
OK, OK. Look, for all I know, Swayze’s hobby may
be bull-riding and Tune
was welterweight champ of the U.S. Marines. That’s
roughly my point.
"Quien es mas macho," Red state vs. Blue state?
It’s all nonsense.
It’s one thing for the Sporting News to run a
jokey article about how
Bush would be the choice to bust "a fastball
at Osama bin Laden’s ear."
(Never mind that Kerry played varsity ice hockey
and soccer while Bush
was a cheerleader; his opening pitch at Fenway
Park did bounce.) Yet
even The New York Times recently asked which
presidential hopeful had
the more manly bicycle. Bush. That $3,000 mountain
bike he keeps falling
off, see, manifests "a certain daredevil quality,"
while Kerry’s $8,000
street model bespeaks caution. Never mind that
in Texas iconography, a
rancher on a bicycle may as well wear pantyhose
and high heels. Real Men
ride horses, a virile pastime I’m proud to share
with a couple of
million 12-year-old girls. So how can Kerry win
over voters here in
Arkansas? Well, dove season opens in early September.
He needs to get in
some televised shooting with Mark Pryor and Blanche
Lincoln, the state’s
Democratic senators. Kerry’s said to be a crack
wing shot. The
symbolism’s perfect. But let Pryor choose the
hats.
• Free-lance columnist Gene Lyons is a Little
Rock author and recipient
of the National Magazine Award.
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