Emasculation

By Charles Euchner

In a moment of candor last summer, Jesse Jackson confided that he wanted to emasculate Senator Barack Obama for challenging the old-school civil rights movement. And now the Republican Party has taken up the cause of emasculating the Democratic presidential nominee.

Obama's chance to win the election depends on whether he can fight back and keep his manhood.

In her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., Governor Palin mocked and derided Obama's masculinity. Using every available symbol —  guns, hunting and fishing, hockey goons, union members, warriors, POWs, oil drillers, terrorists —  she declared John McCain the only real man in the race. Unless, of course, you include her too.

Over the years, the Republicans have defeated Democrats by emasculating them. So John Kerry's wartime heroism was Swift Boated, and his own bike-riding and windsurfing color-coded the charge. Al Gore was obsessed with his earth-tone clothes, his Hollywood friends, and his passion for the environment. Michael Dukakis could not prevent Willie Horton from breaking into your home. Walter Mondale was a captive of "San Francisco Democrats."

The only recent Democrat to avoid getting femmed was Bill Clinton. Everything the GOP used against Clinton —  the rumors about drug dealing in Arkansas, ugly rumors about Vince Foster's death, his philandering —  actually reinforced his Bubba image. The more Clinton's enemies charged him with thuggery, the more mulligans he got.

If you're a man, you win. If you're a pansy, you lose.

When Sarah Barracuda took the stage in St. Paul, she took her stiletto and knifed Obama again and again. Her charges:

• He's an appeaser in Iraq —  a man who "can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word victory."
• He can write his sissy memoirs —  chick lit, really —  but can't write a piece of legislation.
• He works as a community organizer in Chicago —  whatever that is!
• Not only that, he worked in Chicago, that den of sin run by the infamous rogue Richard Daley--objectionable because softies like Obama can never win against that crowd.
• He mocks god-fearing people in San Francisco.
• "He gives big airy speeches" but "when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot—what exactly is our opponent's plan?"
• His campaign for president is nothing more than effeminate "journey of personal discovery."
• In fact, the only thing that Barack Obama gets tough on, in this account, is his zeal to raise taxes —  to build up the already-meddlesome nanny state.

When she first introduced herself to the American public, she called herself a "hockey mom." At the time, it sounded like a modest reference. But last night, she clarified. "What's the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom?" she asked. "Lipstick." No kidding.

Until now, the GOP has tried to win by building up John McCain's manhood. The campaign reminds voters on every issue, domestic and foreign, that he was a POW in 'Nam. Every St. Paul speaker emphasized his refusal to give in to his captors' demands at the Hanoi Hilton.

In fact, McCain's identity was forged in that hellish world of captivity. He stood by his fellow soldiers and resolved to battle tyrants. In his best moments, McCain also learned how to leave the past in the past. He and Senator Kerry worked hard to end the unending domestic war over Vietnam and establish diplomatic and economic ties with the old foe.

Palin's acceptance speech was the most scorching address by a new vice presidential candidate in at least a generation. Previous addresses targeted the opponents' policies, not their character and manhood. Spiro Agnew was ruthless in his attacks on liberals, antiwar activists, media, and bureaucrats. But he usually focused on policies and did not begin his assault until after the 1968 convention.

Now Palin has Democrats in a bind. When Democrats attacked her for her inexperience and questioned her command of basic issues, Palin and her allies took refuge in the claim of sexism. "How dare they?" Rudy Giuliani roared. Wearing the armor of feminism, Palin attacks Obama's masculinity.

Obama's only response is to hit hard —  every day —  on the visceral issues of the day. He needs not to cower and complain about unfairness, but stand up and demand fairness. He needs to channel union leaders fighting for fair wages, minorities denied basic civil rights, internationalists who refused to buckle to the Soviet threat. He cannot whine, and he cannot back down.

The best model for Obama might come from the 1963 March on Washington, which took place 45 years to the day before the Democrat delivered his acceptance speech.

Democrats commemorating that day usually refer to Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream"oratory. But Obama needs to tap into the real passion of that day —  not dreams of brotherhood, but impatient demands for basic fairness.

"We want our freedom, and we want it now!" marchers said on that brilliant day. They did not complain or whine. They demanded change.

On a whole raft of issues —  tax fairness, pay equity, school choice, health care, terrorism —  Obama needs to show he won't get pushed around by McCain's pitbull. In a sense, Obama has to say he's the real mensch, that he's not going to let McPalin push middle-class Americans around, that he's going to be there to protest ordinary people's interests. 

That's a message tough enough to work —  and decent enough to build something new starting next January.