Who's Your Daddy?
George W. Bush plays a father figure, but only on TV

October 4 2004
Counterbias.com
by Steve Horowitz

The election is just over a month away, and it's all coming down to gonads. From what I can tell, Bush has them and Kerry doesn't.

It seems like I'm hearing it everywhere: in polls, in interviews, on cable news (they don't call it Hardball for nothing) and in S&M chat rooms. Bush is decisive, steadfast, confident, unwavering. The kind of guy women drop their drawers for with minimal coaxing. Kerry, on the other hand, is "sensitive." "Nuanced." A caring nurturer, like Stuart Smalley.

Oh, let's just say it. He's a homo. And in these frightening times, the American people want someone of sterner stuff in the Oval Office. Like a cowboy, or a soldier. A construction worker, Indian chief, or cop. You know, a macho, macho man.

Or, as George Lakoff puts it, a strong father.

I first heard about Lakoff on the Daily Kos. Lakoff explains virtually all the differences between liberals and conservatives with two competing moral systems: the strict father model and the nurturant parent (mother) model. And once you accept that America is, basically, a  294-million-member family, the models make a lot of sense, explaining everything from why liberals care about the environment to why conservatives are mad all the time.

Interestingly, Lakoff came up with his models a decade ago. What makes them so important today is the way Republicans have succeeded in framing the 2004 campaign: as a choice between Clint Eastwood and the short gay guy on "Will and Grace."

This con, perhaps the greatest in American political history, is nothing more than a way of disguising a closed, lazy mind as steady, decisive leadership. (A former speechwriter describes Bush as "often uncurious and as a result ill-informed, more conventional in his thinking than a leader probably should be.") But the real beauty of the con is how perfectly suited it is for post-9/11 America. Because, as Lakoff defines it, the strict father model is:

"A traditional nuclear family with the father having primary responsibility for the well-being of the household. The mother has day-to-day responsibility for the care of the house and details of raising the children. But the father has primary responsibility for setting overall family policy, and the mother's job is to be supportive...

Life is seen as fundamentally difficult and the world as fundamentally dangerous. Evil is conceptualized as a force in the world, and it is the father's job to support his family and protect it from evils -- both external and internal ... The father embodies the values needed to make one's way in the world and to support a family: he is morally strong, self-disciplined, frugal, temperate, and restrained. He sets an example by holding himself to high standards. He insists on his moral authority, commands obedience, and when he doesn't get it, metes out retribution as fairly and justly as he knows how. It is his job to protect and support his family, and he believes that safety comes out of strength."

Talk about prescient -- Lakoff wrote those words in 1995, and he may as well have been writing 2004 strategy briefings for Karl Rove and Karen Hughes.

But there's a problem. George "Big Daddy" Bush isn't morally strong, self-disciplined, frugal, temperate or restrained. If he were, his re-election campaign wouldn't rely so completely on lies and character assassination; he wouldn't remain so ill-informed; the national debt wouldn't be at $7 trillion; and we could have eliminated any threat from Iraq without going to war.

As for Bush setting an example, I guess that holds if you're trying to avoid combat in an unpopular war.

He does demand obedience, though. And when he doesn't get it, he metes out retribution by firing dissenting advisers, cutting Democrats out of the legislative process, ridiculing the United Nations, and denying Iraq rebuilding contracts to countries that opposed his aggression.

Not that these details matter. Voters looking for a father figure -- and by some polls, they're a majority -- happily swallow what Bush keeps ejaculating: that he'll never go soft on terrorism, so only he can keep the family safe.

Maybe the debates will expose Bush as the small, inadequate man that he is. Maybe millions of Americans will suddenly realize that confident, resolute people don't always have to tell you how resolute they are, and that "decisive" doesn't have to mean "too intellectually challenged to handle multiple options and changing conditions."

Or maybe our family is in for another four years of debilitating dysfunction.

Steve Horowitz is a freelance advertising and political writer living in Hollywood, Fla. His blog is Love America, Hate Bush.