Metrosexual Masquerade

I’ve always had trouble with the “turn the other cheek” thing. If someone punched you in the face and you just stood there, you could expect it to happen again and again until you moved away. That’s how it was in my neighborhood. What you did was hit back harder and more often —  twice at least — before asking, “Want some more?” If the other guy was tougher you still had to hit back, even when you knew you’d get pounded. Everyone understood that. There was never a shortage of bullies, and that’s the way you dealt with them. Though I’ve met bullies several times since, I haven’t had to hit one for decades. I think it was because they knew, viscerally, that I would. I’m fairly old now, but I still would.

There are always bullies, and boys who fight back. The way adults handle it, however, has changed. Teachers and administrators who have to deal with occasional fights have stopped inquiring about who or what started it — who may have been in the right, and who in the wrong. Instead, the same punishment is meted out to both combatants because the new ethic is: “Fighting is always wrong.” That sometimes it’s right is never considered in what some call our new, feminized culture. 

I know men who believe that’s the way is should be, and they may be in the majority now. That’s sad, but what’s even worse? These metrosexual men are running our government. When Vladimir Putin invaded the Crimea, Secretary of State John Kerry said, “You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text.”

Really John? I know you grew up in Massachusetts the same time I did, but maybe it was in a different kind of neighborhood, or maybe you were a cheek-turner. If you’ve never been punched you in the head, you never learned the basic lessons every man should learn. Clearly Putin learned them, and he understands you much better than you understand him. That’s unfortunate for the rest of us Americans you’re representing. You should know the nature of man is the same in the 21st century as it was in the 19th and in every other century, but you don’t.

After Putin took Crimea and then massed troops on the Ukrainian border, President Obama said almost the same thing Kerry did: “Because you're bigger and stronger [you’re] taking a piece of the country — that is not how international law and international norms are observed in the 21st century.” Oh yeah? I have news for you President Obama: That’s the law of the jungle no matter what century it is. You clearly haven’t learned it, and neither has your Secretary of State.

Yes, I know Kerry got three Purple Hearts and a silver star in Vietnam, but the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth were right when they claimed he lied to receive them. I came to know Kerry shortly after that. I worked in his unsuccessful campaign for congress in 1972. He was a guest in my house and in my parents’ house, and I sensed in him what Putin sensed, and what Iranian negotiators sensed: A leader needs an inner core of toughness and Kerry hasn’t got it. It’s not there. Neither his Boston Brahmin accent nor his $400 haircuts, nor his ill-gotten medals can disguise the emptiness of his expensive, tailored suit. I stopped showing up at his campaign headquarters back in September of ’72, and I was happy to watch him lose in November after spending more than any other congressional candidate in the country.

Never have I met President Obama, but I’ve been forced to see him over and over on television — so many times that I feel like I know him. He’s faced tough situations and I’ve observed his reactions. My conclusion? He hasn’t got it either. If I had any doubt, it was gone when he drew a red line in Syria and then let Assad cross it. He dithered and denied, saying he never drew it in the first place. After that, nothing mattered — not the crease in his pants that David Brooks so admired, not the thrill Chris Matthews got up his leg, not the resolve he pretends to possess as he reads from a teleprompter — none of it. Both our allies and our enemies know that, although people in the Obama Administration still talk tough, that’s all there will ever be. They’ve seen the man behind the curtain and he isn’t much.

Smartest President Ever?

The things I feared most when Barack Obama was elected to a second term are unfolding.

Last Friday night, Obama said: “There will be costs” if Russia invades the Crimea. Hours later, Russian soldiers moved in. Remember that 3 AM phone call Hillary Clinton warned us about in 2008? Remember Saturday Night Live’s satire about it? “This is hard!” said the actor playing Obama about being president. Indeed it is. The man who is accustomed to voting “present” when hard decisions are necessary is on the spot now.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia, one of the world’s many thugs, believes our president is spineless - and is taking advantage. A lot can happen in the three years remaining in Obama’s second term, and the invasion of the Crimea is one of many to come. It’s another vision of the world as it is becoming during the Great American Decline. It’s another test for “the most intelligent man ever to become president,” according to presidential historian and sycophant Michael Beschloss. Obama should ace it, right? Maybe not. Could Beschloss possibly have been mistaken? We’ve never seen any of Obama’s grades because won’t release his records.

Expect ever-more-difficult tests right up until January, 2017. Will Putin cut off natural gas to Ukraine? Will he invade the mainland? Does he have his eye on the Baltic States? Does anybody really expect it’s all going to stop here?

So far, President Obama has issued statements. His chief diplomat, John Kerry, talks about crossing lines. The world remembers what Obama said about a red line in Syria last year: “A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized,” he said. Syria did both, and what did Obama do? He said, “I didn’t set a red line. The world set a red line.”

For years, Obama has gotten away with contradicting himself like this on the American political stage. The mainstream media had never gone after him the way they went after the cowboy, and maybe he thinks he can get away with it on the world stage too. That’s how he’s always handled whatever challenges have come his way. “Get out the teleprompters!” he’d say. “I’m going to make a speech!” The mainstream media lauded him for his brilliance every time. How is that working with Putin? Not good. Rather than expel Russia from the G-8, Obama threatens to expel Russia from the G-8. Does he really think that’s going to scare Putin?

Try to think of it this way: A bully is walking down the beach and sees a cowboy and a community organizer. Which one is he going to kick sand at? I can just picture it. Can you? Obama stands up rubbing his eyes and draws a line in the sand with his toe. Putin crosses it. Obama backs up and says, “Oh yeah? Well how would you like me to issue a statement?” When that doesn't work, he says: “All right, that’s enough! I’m doing to tell Chris Matthews to call you a racist!”

The rest of the world is watching too. China said Monday it agrees with what Russia did in the Crimea. Remember: China has always wanted Taiwan back, and the United States has pledged to protect it. China also wants some islands in the Sea of Japan, and it could prompt Kim Jong Un to invade South Korea again. What would Obama do about any of that? I read a report in Stars and Stripes that our troops stationed in Okinawa are gearing up by having a stage show on base in which our gay soldiers perform in drag. That ought to scare ’em. The best defense is a good offense, and what better way to offend communist troops than a drag queen performance? The community organizer really knew what he was doing when he repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Sunday’s Washington Post quoted Andrew C. Kutchins of the Center for Strategic and International Studies: “If you are effectively taking the stick option off the table, then what are you left with? I don’t think that Obama and his people really understand how others in the world are viewing his policies.”

Thinking now of Kerry’s recent statement about global warming being the “most dangerous weapon of mass destruction.  . . . The science is unequivocal, and those who refuse to believe it are simply burying their heads in the sand.” Now that he has to deal with thugs like Putin, perhaps he’ll change his mind about that. Like Obama, Kerry thinks he’s wicked smart, even though his grades at Yale weren’t quite as good as those of the cowboy president Democrats believed was so dumb.

At a time when America needs real leaders, we’re left with Obama and Kerry. Putin is eating their lunch.