So which is it? (UPDATED)

(Scroll to see an addendum you simply must read)

From the East Coast and the Washington Post comes this Ruth Marcus missive as to what what's wrong with the Bush administration:

I have a new theory about what's behind everything that's wrong with the Bush administration: manliness.

...

No wimpiness worries now. This is an administration headed by a cowboy boot-wearing brush-clearer, backstopped by a quail-shooting fly fisherman comfortable with long stretches of manly silence -- very "Brokeback Mountain," except this crowd considers itself too manly for such PC Hollywood fare. "I would be glad to talk about ranchin', but I haven't seen the movie," Bush told a questioner.

There are, no doubt, comforting aspects to the manly presidency; think Bush with a bullhorn on top of the smoldering ruins of the twin towers. After a terrorist attack, no one's looking for a sensitive New Age president. Even now, being a strong leader polls at the top of qualities that voters most admire in Bush.

But the manliness of the Bush White House has a darker side that has proved more curse than advantage. The prime example is the war in Iraq: the administration's assertion of the right to engage in preemptive and unilateral war; the resolute avoidance of debate about the "slam-dunk" intelligence on weapons of mass destruction; the determined lack of introspection or self-doubt about the course of the war; and the swaggering dismissal of dissenting views as the carping of those not on the team.

The administration's manliness doesn't stop at the water's edge. Pushing another round of tax cuts in 2003, Vice President Cheney sounded like a warrior claiming tribute after victory in battle: "We won the midterms. This is our due," Cheney reportedly said. After the 2004 election, Bush exuded the blustering self-assurance of a president who had political capital to spend -- or thought he did -- and wasn't going to think twice before plunking down the whole pile on Social Security.

...

What this country could use is a little less manliness -- and a little more of what you would describe as womanly qualities: restraint, introspection, a desire for consensus, maybe even a touch of self-doubt.

One would presume that she's talking about Hillary.  Then again, maybe she's thinking of Dick Durbin, Harry Reid or maybe even Ted Kennedy.  Who knows.

Yet while Ruth disdains manliness from the East Coast, Evan Derkacz points to a study from the West Coast with a decidedly different perspective (though I'm sure there's a shared hatred for George Bush):

Headlined: "You Mean They Really Are Whiny Ass Titty Babies?," Susie Madrak points to a Berkeley study, published in the Journal of Research Into Personality, showing that whiny 3- and 4-year-olds:

... tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity.

The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests.

...

The prof who conducted the study with his now-deceased wife, concluded that:

"... that insecure kids look for the reassurance provided by tradition and authority, and find it in conservative politics. The more confident kids are eager to explore alternatives to the way things are, and find liberal politics more congenial."

Interesting eh? 

So folks who I find kinship with politically are either too manly or too whiny, too cowboy-ish or too insecure, too fly fisherman or too titty baby-ish.

And the solution to these problems are men who think like Al Gore, Howard Dean, and Russ Feingold?  Or women who think like Barbara Boxer, Kathleen Blanco and Nancy Pelosi?

Defense rests.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin receives information from a tipster that if true, sheds some interesting light on the whiny-babies-grow-up-to-be-conservatives study.

Comments

[MarcV]

When it comes to "whiny", do Democrat or Republican leaders come to mind?

While I'm tempted to refute the oft-repeated lies and accusations about preemption, WMD's and intelligence failures, I will look at the following "need" for Pres. Bush:

restraint, introspection, a desire for consensus, maybe even a touch of self-doubt

What would be the reaction of Islamic terrorists if they see that in our leadership? Attack, they are weak! They only respect strength. They are not seeking compromise or consensus, only subjugation.

God help us if we elected someone to the Presidency in 2008 with those "womanly" qualities. Though it may not be a good time to elect a woman in this next election, it could work to the US's advantage to have a woman lead a military victory over the terrorists and heap shame upon them.

[John Blake]

We will respect a female candidate for executive office if, and only if, she is not the daughter, wife, or other close relative of a previous well-known public figure.

Maggie Thatcher qualifies, as does Angela Merkel. Indira Gandhi and a slew of others, from Madame Chiang Kai-shek to Eva Peron and Imelda Marcos, do not. Note how the legacy incumbents are virtually all authoritarian poseurs, riding coattails solely for personal aggrandizement-- absent ideals or principled policies, concerned with no-one's wellbeing but their narcissistic own.

Hillary, the Wife of Bill (aka the WOB), emphatically fails the test. A cruder, more self-serving, vulgar little twit it would be hard to find... but always, with a most exalted opinion of herself.

Regardless of "ability", women tend to private personae, men to public. Females work behind the scenes, gossiping and back-stabbing; men at least are out-front, waving arms, shouting profanities, but rarely relying on the ad hominem, means-over-ends slander that females find congenial. To the extent our current D-rats embrace the female model, they retreat from the Agora to traipse around as victims, terribly misunderstood, all the while poising poisoned daggers to strike in stealth rather than risk open confrontation.

Lucretia Borgia had her ways, as do our treacherous Media in time or war. Most recently, when Vicente Fox proclaimed a massive oil-drilling program in the Gulf of Mexico, people wondered: Where are the eco-freaks, our gangrenous Greens, so vociferous regarding ANWR, our Gulf Coast, etc? The answer is, it is not "pollution" or "resourse exploitation" that they hate, it is the United States. "Greenery" is but one of many excuses to rant against free enterprise, free markets, free speech, free anything... a cultural death-wish, which a substantial proportion of leftist ideologues not only articulate but actively endorse, always with the latest technology of course.

"Manliness"? Whatever it is, it beats purblind feministical claptrap every time. Femmers spouting doofus verbalisms are typically amazed to find themselves childless, unloved, forlorn. Always they take-take-take, contributing nothing in return. That is thieves' honor... but who has ever seriously attributed honor to females?