Posted on 05/12/2003 8:05:48 AM PDT by lethbridge_east
Heretofore, since at least FDR, most of our American Presidents have been typically staid, except for the notable exception of John F. Kennedy when he appeared formally and repeatedly sans hat. Henceforth the exposed male head was an overnight fad.
With a bad back and Addison’s Disease, Kennedy nevertheless exuded physical vitality to us----he was young, fit, trim and daring (he would sail a boat bare-handed in the open ocean for a magazine photo-op)---furthermore, he exposed his bare head in all settings, even the most formal.
Long-established haberdasheries collapsed shortly after Kennedy’s inauguration because of the ensuing world-wide trend of hatless men.
Now, forty-two years later, U.S. President Bush flew to the homebound troops in a military jet plane and landed on the deck of a carrier. With his flight helmet tucked comfortably against his side Bush was televised for the world’s consumption swaggering across the deck of the world’s largest aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln in a genital-enhancing, parachute-strapped, olive-drab, form-fitted flight suit.
‘Whooo baby! Hold on right there!‘ they howled. For “mediafems” and reflexive Bush critics among the notable women in this profession---whose job it is to either report or comment (or both) on the news…all who griped on the world’s stage of TV, etc. about the carrier landing, had at least their secondary focus on---The Flight Suit.
Ponder briefly what occurred. An adequate summary goes like this: ‘Bush landed as a passenger on a carrier deck.’
This dramatic scene carried by the big media was a version of the “Society News Section-Controls-the-Headlines: It had that--- “Bush wore a beautiful deep-blue sequined-gown as he stepped from the shiny-wet-black helicopter.”---kind of flavor.
Well, something smells Freudian to me about (Robert Byrd not withstanding) women who get exercised when their perceptions unexpectedly titillate their psyches---they don’t like it one bit. ‘Bush was just too sexy for his clothes.’
The refrain was unbearable to Anti-Bush Fems because it had Bush in ALL his glory. Alas, since he is virtually their sworn enemy, it just couldn’t be true to them. Their escape from this cognitive dissonance was to at once deny their flashes of sexual interest and fly into a rage at the same time.
How do I know all this? I’ve been reading what women have been writing about this very concern. To wit, Lisa Schiffren, in the 5/09/03 edition of the Wall Street Journal: Hey, Flyboy! Women voters agree: President Bush is a hottie!
“Back on the West Side, among the liberals I live surrounded by, there was dissent. At my younger children's preschool, comments ranged from ‘well he's cute, but not my type’ to ‘I can't think of anything more revolting.’ Many of them still cite Bill Clinton and his allegedly penetrating intellect as more appealing.”
Schiffren, after speaking with conservative ladies from the (New York) City’s East Side, came to an alternate conclusion:
“The American media were fully aware of how stunning the president looked last week. And they chose to defuse it by referring endlessly to the "photo-oppiness" of the event. The man uses overwhelming military force to vanquish a truly evil foe, facing down balking former "allies," and he is not taken seriously as a foreign- policy president. He out top-guns the Hollywood version, and all the media can talk about is the impending campaign commercial.”
Schiffren’s East-siders spoke unabashedly about Bush’s praiseworthiness and their libidos:
“…among the soccer moms I spend my days with. At my daughter's East Side school, my friend Emily, a mother of two and probably a liberal, examined the picture of the president in his fly-boy gear that I just happened to have in my purse. She looked carefully, grinned and said, "He's a hottie. No doubt about it. Really a hottie. Why haven't I noticed this before?”
And then from the writer’s friend: "Hot? SO HOT!!!!! THAT UNIFORM!" In a more restrained way, my friend Maggie, a writer/mom, explained: "I think he is actually protecting me and my sons, and I find that attractive in a man."
It would seem from of all of these observations that, while some liberal women are painfully repressed, conservative women are enjoying liberation. Not too long ago it was thought to be the reverse.
I don’t know what to make of Robert Byrd, except to conclude lazily that he experienced at least a brief rise to Bush’s apparition when he protested almost vigorously: "I do question the motives of a deskbound president who assumes the garb of a warrior for the purposes of a speech."
It’s hard on Kleagle Byrd as time slips away like sand in the hand and the memory of his donning the silky-white-hood Klu Klux Klan uniform of racial terror is to him a forgotten waywardness.
Psychopathology explains repressed liberal women’s reactions to “Bush-The-Sexy-Hero,” as does long-standing class bigotry and partisan politics allow a clear understanding of Senator Byrd.
Jean Chretien, on the other hand, mystifies analysts. Neither pragmatic nor honestly idealistic, he stands with Chirac for no other apparent reason than transient reassurance that someone likes him.
France will drop Canada like a bad habit once the Maple Leaf is no longer one of France’s covers for sagging public relations. Everyone knows this, yet Chretien still salivates on Jacque’s shoe like a hungry and gracious dog.
The more I scrutinize Canada and its abrupt shift toward global socialism, the more I wonder…have they become so very unlike us when we have been always so close?
Besides, he was flying in an ejection seat in the E-3. He is required by regulation to wear it, as well as the rest of the mandatory safety gear he had on. There is nothing "stagey" at all about this!
The only thing "artifical" in this entire dust-up is the poo-pooing outrage from frothy Liberals who simply can't stand the scene but cry "foul!" for other reasons.
Look at it this way: would you rather she have a crush on Sean Penn or Martin Sheen, or, God forbid, Al Gore or Bill Clinton? Perspective, darlin'. Just shows she has good taste.
Exactly! There's no way Bubba cold have pulled this one off, because it would not have been believable.
I still gag when I think of Bubba's pasty, white thighs in those jogging shorts. Portraying himself as a fitness buff was not believable, either.
BTW, in the next to last photo you posted, in the background, there is a plane with "VFA-113" painted on it. That's my hubbies' former squadron.;o)
Mitt Romney [MA's very virile Republican Governor] actually had an ad where he was seen frolicking on a raft in swim trunks with his very virile sons, while a voice in the background blathers about his family. Mitt looks great in a bathing suit, especially for a 50+ guy. His Democratic rival, Shannon O'Brien, who's an admitted Lesbian and devotee of Dunkin' Donuts, raised a hue and a cry, Mitt kept running the ads. He's Governor and she's a question on the Massachusetts Edition of Trivial Pursuit. Turnabout is fair play; they tried to imply that he was unfit to be Massachusetts Governor because Mormons were weird. As opposed to adherents of Sappho.
You had to go and invoke that awful image, didn't you? The Cellulite Nightmare...
Now, let me go wash my brain with clorox.
Bingo! You could photo shop any Dem's face into those pics, and it wouldn't be even close to the same. (If I recall, Dukakis even tried at one time, and ended up looking like a geek in a helmet.)
Bush graduated from Combat Crew Training School on June 23, 1970, having fulfilled his two years of active duty. But he still flew the F-102 Delta Daggers a few times a month; his unit kept two of the fighters, fully armed, on round-the-clock alert and needed the pilots to man them.
To start at Harvard, Bush needed early release from Guard duty in Texas, and he got it easily, about eight months short of a full six years. A Bush spokesman, Dan Bartlett, said early departures were quite common and, in Bush's case, appropriate because his unit had phased out the F-102s.
Also in that article...
During a second interview, Bush himself raised the issue. "Had my unit been called up, I'd have gone . . . to Vietnam," Bush said. "I was prepared to go." But there was no chance Bush's unit would be ordered overseas. Bush says that toward the end of his training in 1970, he tried to volunteer for overseas duty, asking a commander to put his name on the list for a "Palace Alert" program, which dispatched qualified F-102 pilots in the Guard to the Europe and the Far East, occasionally to Vietnam, on three- to six-month assignments.
He was turned down on the spot. "I did [ask] – and I was told, 'You're not going,' " Bush said. Only pilots with extensive flying time – at the outset, 1,000 hours were required – were sent overseas under the voluntary program. The Air Force, moreover, was retiring the aging F-102s and had ordered all overseas F-102 units closed down as of June 30, 1970.
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ping list.
Consider yourself lucky, sweetie.
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