Kathleen Parker shows us why she deserved that Pulitzer:
No, I’m not calling Obama a girlie president. But . . . he may be suffering a rhetorical-testosterone deficit when it comes to dealing with crises, with which he has been richly endowed.
[…] Obama is a chatterbox who makes Alan Alda look like Genghis Khan. […] Obama may prove to be our first male president who pays a political price for acting too much like a woman.
I’m not a DC columnist, so I’m not qualified to judge testosterone levels from speeches and policy statements. Even so, I don’t see a hell of a lot of robust masculinity in politicians of either party. If Parker (and MoDo) are looking for wimps, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell and Joe Lieberman, just to name three of many, seem like better targets than Obama.
(via)
Kryptik
Consideration and diplomacy are for wimpy girly men! All crises should be met with a ‘Bring ’em on!’ and a stern, aggressive stare!
TR
Can’t they make up their minds? Is Obama the scary Negro who’s going to shove “things” down their throats until they gag? Or is he a poor widdle weakling woman who can’t do anything at all?
Come on, conservatives! Pick one of the groups you hate and make a decision.
Console
The worst part is the “passive voice” shit. Not only is the article vapid, it’s based on evidence that doesn’t even make sense. How the hell is passive voice feminine sounding?
Kathleen wrote a shitty article.
The shitty article was written by Kathleen Parker.
Sorry if i don’t notice the rhetorical testosterone levels of those sentences differing
PeakVT
Obama may prove to be our first male president who pays a political price for acting too much like a woman.
The Test Prep Daily can’t die soon enough.
Mnemosyne
@Console:
Because passive = feminine and active = masculine, so therefore a form of speech is gendered because shut up, that’s why.
Cacti
Thank goodness for the “free press”.
What would we do without them?
*facepalm*
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Obviously, starved libido syndrome, aka in medical jargon – Modoiasis. Or – Shorter Parker – I know he has a giant schlong, they all do, I wanna see that thang once in a while.
freelancer
@TR:
I wanna yell at Parker and Modo and the rest of the nattering class like Alec Baldwin:
Will you go to lunch?! Will you GO to LUNCH?!
Cacti
I propose the POTUS end every speech with a manly c*ck thrust and a fist in the air.
Mnemosyne
So was anyone surprised at Pete Townshend’s coming out of the closet considering the lyrics to that song? Just wonderin’.
Jenny
Seems like yesterday when Parker was praising Obama for not losing his cool when Lehman Bros crashed Wall Street.
Jenny
@freelancer: Nice catch. She’s ripping off MoDo’s warped “daddy” columns.
Why do these people hate women?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Console:
Parker is right. I mean how many times has Obama shook his pretty head and declared himself “The Decider”/ With nary a “Wanted dead of alive” declaration. A single “Bring it On” would have done wonders for his rhetorical testosterone polling numbers . And he ain’t back massaged a single female Chancellor, but it’s only been a year and a half. Big Puddy.
mr. whipple
I’m gonna get inside your bitter mind.
beltane
Was Genghis Khan a mute? What a weird, weird analogy. Perhaps this piece was Kathleen Parker’s mating call, a way to lure conservative men away from their hookers and rent-boys and into the arms of a true blue high-born Republican.
Someone has to tell Parker than Maureen Dowd already covered this two years ago. She’s late to the party.
beltane
@Jenny: Parker is to Dowd what The Munsters are to The Addams Family. Both are ghoulish but only one has a campy appeal.
fucen tarmal
complete bullshit that was.
i guess this means yoda was a pussy, at least he didn’t have the healing finger like that cooze e.t.
Brachiator
Richly endowed?
Calling Dr. Freud.
Parker obviously has something on her mind. And it ain’t rhetorical.
Gregory
Geez, they aren’t even being as subtle as calling Edwards a “Breck girl” any more, are they?
Gregory
@Cacti:
And, of course, begin them with “Excuse me while I whip this out,” before pulling his prepared text from inside his jacket.
Jenny
Just because Scarlett O’Hara didn’t yell and scream didn’t mean she wasn’t one tough sonofabitch.
Of course if Obama did yell and scream, the Village would break out the psycho-babble and say he’s weak and trying to overcompensate, and how St. Ronnie never had to yell and scream.
Lev
Chickenhawk (n) — one (usually a conservative) who cheers on conflict in any possible foreign battlefield, with the certain knowledge that he (or she) will under no circumstances have to fight it.
Chickencock (n) — one (usually a conservative) who challenges the masculinity of a political opponent, with the certain knowledge that he (or she) will never have to put their own manliness on the line to prove it.
Reading this stuff just isn’t that shocking. Kathleen Parker is a pretty vile pundit who had a short, improbable run of credibility as The Only Conservative Who Would Say That Sarah Palin Is An Idiot. She’s parlayed it well–Pulitzer, show with Eliot Spitzer, etc. Well, that show is probably punishment enough. She’s going to have to be backstage with Eliot Spitzer on a regular basis, remember.
And, on a related note, I’d just love to see Joe Lieberman fistfight someone like Jim Webb or Jack Reed to see quien es mas macho. Lieberman would get his ass kicked with two or less punches from either one.
AxelFoley
Stupid ass article.
But, Parker’s kinda MILFish to me. I’d hit it. Hell, I’d hit MoDo, too, for a threesome and kill two birds with one coc–I mean, stone.
Maybe they’d stop writing about their daddy fantasies then.
Allan
The funniest part of this story is, CNN’s putting her and Eliot Spitzer head-to-head against Keith Olbermann. No, really.
KCinDC
Mark Liberman at Language Log looked at the column as a linguist and not surprisingly found it was bullshit.
And here’s Greenwald on Parker from 2008, when she was also obsessed with Democratic effeminacy (when she wasn’t going on about race).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Alan Alda? Seriously? Does KP also have timely, razor-sharp jokes about Bella Abzug, Bert Lance and Billy Beer?
BombIranForChrist
Also, please note that Boehner is orange.
This is not a normal color. This is not a “hanging out with the boyz, going fishing” kind of color. This is not even “hanging out with the boyz in the very manly tanning salon” kind of color either. This is applique kind of color. This is make-up.
I wonder if he adds any shadow to his eyes, to help make them extra soulful when he cries.
TaMara (BHF)
Well I can go to bed now, assured that once again Obama is a failed president. No day is complete without being told how he has failed me today.
Ash Can
Oh, for crap’s sake.
Dear Kathleen:
Your inability to get laid is NOT OUR PROBLEM.
Sincerely,
The Rest of the World
Mike in NC
I’m smelling Pulitzer 2.0. baby! Wait until her in-depth interviews with Bristol Palin and Rand Paul. But there’ll always be a place of honor for KPark on Johnny McCain’s tire swing.
arguingwithsignposts
I lost all respect for the Pulitzers when I found out you had to submit an application.
Also, Mac McClelland from Mother Jones is giving me the hots.
Lev
@Ash Can: Ever listen to Dennis Prager? His misogyny is covered with such a thick a layer of desperation it’s just hilarious. Been married four times and I don’t think the current wife is giving him any.
Allan
Contemplate that shitty sentence, which Kathleen Parker cribbed almost verbatim from the GLM’s website. (Speaking of near-plagiarism by Kathleen Parker, Steve M.’s post at No More Mister Nice Blog motivated me to send an email to her boss, Fred Hiatt. Really, it’s a must-read.)
“The highest level measured in any major presidential address this century.”
That sure sounds like a lot more than ten years and three presidents’ worth of speeches, doesn’t it?
This is how hard people torture words to make Obama sound terrible.
You can look forward to seeing and hearing Kathleen Parker cut and paste the work of other authors into snide putdowns of the Obama administration in the future.
Ash Can
@Lev: I ignore Dennis Prager, and I’m sure I’m better off for it.
Honus
@Lev: Hell, you don’t need a marine like Webb to take these tin cans. Harry Reid was a football player, boxer and a cop. He could send any republican down the street kickin’ his lunchbox and talkin’ to himself.
Keith
Please tell me the ombudsman tears the entire column apart. The article is insulting to so many people in so many ways, it’s almost impressive.
KCinDC
@Allan, it’s even worse than that. Look at the Language Log article I linked above, and the links from it. The Global Language Monitor is run by Paul JJ Payack, a guy who knows nothing about linguistics but apparently lots about getting his name in the news. He’s the one responsible for last year’s insane countdown to English supposedly getting its millionth word (according to his calculations) last year. All sorts of media outlets fell for it.
Jager
Either Reed or Webb could have kicked George W. Bush’s ass and wasn’t W a very macho, tough and forceful guy? Obama could clean house on the entire Repulican leadership and not break a sweat.
Elie
They just don’t understand what he is doing. To be fair, sometimes I don’t understand it either.
Clearly, Obama’s leadership approach is not authoritarian and top down. He does not act out, scream or emote. He lets us squirm with our various discomforts. He doesnt try to project that he can fix everything.. we have the discomfort of feeling the anxiety of imperfect solutions: no fix for the GOM, no immediate fix for jobs, the war or anything else. WE WANT HIM TO FIX IT — and he is saying he can’t and we are going to have to be patient while the fix — such as is possible and imperfect, comes to pass. Don’t like it? Tough. Grow up. Worst of all, Obama projects that he is not unduly stressed that we are upset with him — he can take our poutrage…
Allan
@KCinDC: Thanks for that link. His site seemed weirdly tautological and devoid of any substance.
Jager
@Jager:
Lets list some Republican tough guys: Bobby Jindal, Mitch McConnel (zero chin), Newt Gingrich, Jeb Bush, Steve King, Haley Barber (there is an inspiring leader! Romney? Where is the strong R leader…they are all pussys.
Allan
@Keith: He will refer you to Fred Hiatt, according to his email to me:
mclaren
Shape up, libtards! Get a clue!
Obama isn’t a manly man like Ronald Reagan, who fought in World War II as captain of a submarine in Hellcats of the Navy where…
…Oh. Wait. That was a movie.
Never mind.
racrecir
This girliness is getting out of hand.
http://www.ordinary-gentlemen.com/2010/07/the-high-road-and-the-low/
Comrade Kevin
It’s a Man’s Life, in the modern Republican Party.
asiangrrlMN
Holy shit. What the motherfucking fuckity fuck? And to think I had a modicum of respect for Kathleen Parker when she veered a little off the rightwing path. This may be her penitence for her apostasy. If so, she should just keep spewing rightwingbatshitcrazy points because this drivel is infuriating to me. Obama is more manly than Limbaugh, W., Cheney, Hannity, Beck, Boehner, Cantor, and Eric Massa all oiled up for one massive tickle massage.
Thanks, Kathleen, for showing the vapid stupidity that is the female pundit. Aaaaaargh!
OK. I had to add to my rant. I want to challenge Kathleen Parker to a a duel–a rusty pitchfork duel. She needs to be taken down.
Mike Kay
@Elie: how quickly things change. two years ago, we wanted someone cool under pressure, like JFK during the cuban missile crisis and FDR during Pearl Harbor. We didn’t want a someone saying, “bring them on” or “bomb, bomb, bomb, … bomb, bomb, iran”. Now people want him to rip off his shirt like Hulk Hogan and waterboard Tony Hayward and then cry on tee vee like glenn beck.
robertdsc
What, no Rahm?
asiangrrlMN
@robertdsc: Mmmmm, Rahm. He’s pretty manly himself.
@Mike Kay: Agreed. I got heartily sick of the faux machismo that oozed out of W’s every pore. All that “I’m a tough guy” bullshit was just a cover for how weak and ineffectual he actually was.
Plus, the other thing that irritates me is that Parker is putting down her entire gender with this article. Zomigod! Obama is acting like a girrrrl! What the fuck ever.
Mike Kay
@asiangrrlMN: maybe Barack should buy a fake ranch and ride around in a pick up truck, after choking on pretzels.
asiangrrlMN
@Mike Kay: And clear away brush. I hear that is very manly.
FlipYrWhig
@asiangrrlMN:
Even better: Obama is acting like a girl… by not showing enough emotion.
asiangrrlMN
@FlipYrWhig: Hahahahahaha! That’s even funnier.
EIGRP
@Gregory: I bet POTUS thinks that every time he pulls out a speech. Were I a black POTUS, I know I would!
-Eric