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Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

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Battle won, war still ongoing.

No one could have predicted…

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

I really should read my own blog.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

We still have time to mess this up!

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

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You are here: Home / Can terrorists be manly?

Can terrorists be manly?

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Harvey Mansfield has some kind of a nutty anti-Obama rant in the Weekly Standard this week. I didn’t read it, but seeing it reminded me of this, my all-time favorite interview, about Mansfield’s book “Manliness”; I like the bizarre questions like “Can terrorists be manly” and the fact that it finishes with a discussion of bespoke clothes, cigars, and scotch. I have nothing special to say about it, but I thought you might enjoy reading it too.

Reader Interactions

91Comments

  1. 1.

    madmommy

    Why even ask such a silly question? Do men really sit around thinking about how “manly” they are? Personally, I don’t want to compete with a man for mirror time.

  3. 3.

    DougJ

    @madmommy:

    The whole thing is so openly “faculty club in the 1920s” and simultaneously homoerotic — not that there’s necessarily anything contradictory about that.

  5. 5.

    rob!

    Man, Republicans must REALLY be insecure about the size of the President’s package. I think they’ve seen Blazing Saddles a few too many times.

  7. 7.

    El Cid

    Terrorists are to be treated just like you deal with 7 foot tall effeminate Persians, some of whom have saws for hands: you face them down with a force of tanned, bare-chested, leather-thong wearing handsome Greek warriors…

  8. 8.

    DougJ

    I also like that an article about manliness opens with this:

    A slight figure with a straw hat in one hand and a gray nylon gym bag in the other greeted me as I exited the elevator.

  10. 10.

    williamc

    Sometimes I wonder if the fellas that dwell on the totems of masculinity know that the majority of gay dudes that I have ever encountered would fit their scotch-drinking, risk-taking, money-making definition of “manly men”; indeed, Sully himself, if you had never heard him go on about how queer he is, could be one of those types…besides his propensity for super fag-outs on a pretty regular basis…

  12. 12.

    El Cid

    @rootless_e: How would I know? I would never encounter that dark quasar star of tidal force gravity dumbness without it being cited by liberal bloggers intent on watching it.

  14. 14.

    Mike Kay

    Let me get this straight: A career professor at Harvard, of all places, who has never served in the military, even when he had the chance to kill commies in North Korea, is lecturing people on “manliness”!?!

  16. 16.

    williamc

    @DougJ:

    DougJ, sounds like this dude is about to hookup with the guy he met getting off the elevator to me.

    Nothing says ‘manly’ like a happy ending after a workout from the fella that was spotting you while you worked out your abs…

  19. 19.

    de stijl

    One man’s “terrorist” is another man’s “freedom fighter” totally heterosexual, not at all self-hating homosexual, absolutely not power-bottom, masturbatory fantasy.

  21. 21.

    Mark S.

    Shorter Harvey Mansfield:

    Obama wants to govern by rational administration. Rational administration is more suited to monarchy than to republics. Therefore, Obama wants to be king.

    Also, can the Weekly Standard ever get rid of the shitty artist they’ve been employing for the last twenty years?

  23. 23.

    Mike Kay

    I would bet a lot of dough that Harvard Yard’s Professor Manly Mansfield owns more library cards than firearms.

  26. 26.

    beltane

    @Mark S.: Everything about the Weekly Standard is shitty, so why shouldn’t their resident artist also be shitty. It would be tragic for a talented artist to toil away for such a shitty endeavor.

  28. 28.

    Th Republic of Stupidity

    @Mark S.:

    Shorter Harvey Mansfield:
    Obama wants to govern by rational administration. Rational administration is more suited to monarchy than to republics. Therefore, Obama wants to be king.

    Geez… sounds like Harve is channeling his “inner B.O.B.” here…

  29. 29.

    Mark S.

    I was a bit star-struck seeing Harvey Mansfield — America’s premiere political philosopher.

    That’s as far as I got.

    Shouldn’t America’s premier political philosopher be able to hold his own with Stephen Colbert?

  30. 30.

    Dials set to Stupid

    Great interview. So that’s what conservative gay porn sounds like…

    He suggested that we conduct the interview at that very moment, displaying the assertiveness he praised in his most recent book…

    …He answered the question with smooth and robust baritone voice.

    When he departed from our brief interview, I came away with the sense that Mansfield not only wrote about manliness, but he lived out the virtue he extolled. He disappeared into the August heat in search of coffee…

    I kept waiting for van Horrick to talk about Mansfield “taking” him, overcoming his futile attempts at resistance. After all, who could hold out forever against such a man…

  31. 31.

    Amy

    This conclusion is bizarre.

    What is it in human beings that makes some of them love progress more than liberty and makes others love liberty more than progress?

    Mansfield buys into the idea that health care legislation threatens liberty. Yet having the security of having health coverage leads to more liberty. The person in an unfulfilling job that has coverage can leave the job to start a business or can take another job IF health care is a right. Rights do not undermine liberty, they promote them.

  32. 32.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    I guess the Weekly Standard is deeply tied into this year’s Super Bowl commercials and their concern with manliness.

  33. 33.

    Th Republic of Stupidity

    @El Cid:

    … you face them down with a force of tanned, bare-chested, leather-thong wearing handsome Greek warriors…

    You forgot the part about “their well-oiled bodies glistening in the sun”… or something to that effect…

  35. 35.

    Th Republic of Stupidity

    @Dials set to Stupid:

    I kept waiting for van Horrick to talk about Mansfield “taking” him, overcoming his futile attempts at resistance. After all, who could hold out forever against such a man…

    Nothing about the scent of his aftershave?

    The cut of his jib?

    The graceful, panther-like sway of his body?

    (… it goes to eleven, man… )

  38. 38.

    Jason Bylinowski

    A lot of these people REALLY REALLY are secretly gay, aren’t they? I imagined the entire interview as some kind of latent seduction.

    btw, an enthusiastic hello from Fluville. My entire family came down with something akin to dysentery and it’s been a hellish couple of days. We tried sooooo hard to isolate each other and I was cleaning and washing hands and yadda yadda. It was all about as useful as a one-armed trapeze artist with an itchy butt. Yeah I said it. Anyway, cherish your good health.

  40. 40.

    beltane

    @Amy: That’s not the type of liberty he is referring to. His concept of liberty involves the freedom of the employer to profit from employees who are too insecure to ponder leaving their job or starting their own business. Liberty for the little people implies less liberty for the rich and powerful.

  41. 41.

    JimPortlandOR

    one can almost see/hear Mansfield in his one and only pair of jeans (A&F, of course) saying to his significant other: “do these make my ass look fat?”

  43. 43.

    valdivia

    According to Mansfield the Great Defenders of Liberty for ever and ever are the Republicans, because Democrats hate liberty you see? And if he is the premier political philosopher of this country I am fucking cosmonaut.

  44. 44.

    Martin

    Wow, talk about the poster child of über-liberal, intellectual, ivy-league, university professors. Something must be done about these people before wholesome, red-blooded American values are lost forever!

  45. 45.

    rootless_e

    What is it in human beings that makes some of them love progress more than liberty and makes others love liberty more than progress? ———

    this has more than a little manly echo of Wizard of Oz.

    Courage! What makes a King out of a slave?
    Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave?
    Courage! What makes the elephant charge his tusk, in the misty mist or the dusky dusk?
    What makes the muskrat guard his musk?
    Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder?
    Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder?
    Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the “ape” in apricot?
    What have they got that I ain’t got?
    All Four
    Courage!

  46. 46.

    JGabriel

    Speaking of manly men, this is interesting: The Chronicle (via DKos) is reporting that the judge in the Prop 8 case is gay.

    We can expect the wingers to make an issue of it. I’m wondering though, whether the Prop 8 lawyers and clients their will.

    I mean, what would be their basis? Raising the issue seems rather like complaining about a black judge hearing a civil rights case. It’s a complaint that highlights the bigotry of your cause. Ironic, how that happens.

    .

  49. 49.

    jeffreyw

    Finally fixed my connection problem with the google, flushed the dns cache.

    Do you know how hard it is to look shit up without google? had to use bing…shudder.

  50. 50.

    rootless_e

    @valdivia: I thought Thomas Sowell was america’s greatest living philosopher – according to a certain washed out playwright. Aha, maybe “living” is the key modifier.

    Harvard surely has a lot of idjits on staff. I like the evangelical in the law school who thought Bush was Lincoln reborn in Human Form.

  53. 53.

    Mark S.

    BOB, if you were surrounded by the men of the Bush Administration, perhaps you would no longer be a heterosexual.

  56. 56.

    Jibeaux

    Obviously we need some sort of “rough men” a la Erick the guy who hasn’t figured you can get a legal name change to something less douchey for 200 bucks joke here, but I can’t quite figure it out. One of you big, strong, glistening BJers wanna help a girl out?

  57. 57.

    Tattoosydney

    @Martin:

    BoB just wants to be able to imagine the men of MSNBC getting all sweaty together, but has to imagine a woman in the middle to make it all “not-gay” …

    It’s kind of like Top Gun, except with an insane, teabagging, confused pizza chef instead of Tom Cruise.

  58. 58.

    pj

    Gingrich just lied on The Daily Show. He said Richard Reid was given Miranda rights because he is an American citizen. He’s a British citizen. Stewart didn’t know and let him get away with it.

  59. 59.

    jeffreyw

    Joe Shit: I wanna change my name.

    Judge: I can understand that. What to?

    Joe Shit: Bill, so god damn tired of everyone askin “Hey Joe, whadayaknow”

  60. 60.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    @Brick Oven Bill:

    If Rachel was surrounded by ‘terrorists’, instead of the men of MSNBC, perhaps she would no longer be a lesbian.

    Geez… if I didn’t know better…

    ***droll pause…***

    … I’d say you were channeling your “inner Harvey Mansfield”…

  62. 62.

    Jibeaux

    Ok, holy shit, I just read it. Are you supposed to giggle uncontrollably throughout? Because by about the twelfth utterance of “manly”, I just couldn’t hold back any more.

  63. 63.

    scav

    When he departed from our brief interview, I came away with the sense that Mansfield not only wrote about manliness, but he lived out the virtue he extolled. He disappeared into the August heat in search of coffee

    and the latte-sipping lectern-lecturing cowboy of masculinity rode off into the sunset.

    “Who was that bespoke masked man?”

  65. 65.

    Mike Kay

    @Brick Oven Bill:

    Perhaps if Larry Craig urinated in the ladies room he wouldn’t have been arrested for being a toe-tapper.

    Perhaps if Lynn Cheney hadn’t writtern her lesbian love novels her daughter would have turned out straight.

    Perhaps if Ronald Reagan had been more manly his son wouldn’t have turned into a ballet dancer.

  67. 67.

    Tyro

    My grandfather faced down fascist occupiers of his town, kept his family fed through a war, started making wise investments within a few years of coming to the USA, and only once he turned 90 did he stop slaughtering sheep by hand but was still planning to open a small business while tending to his garden and his livestock. And he didn’t drink scotch, wear bespoke suits, or smoke cigars, no doubt because he considered that sort of thing to be a little too “fancy” and wasteful.

    Making a suit is manly. Buying a suit? Any idiot with money lying around can do that.

  72. 72.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Cat Lady #18

    Those links have had me howling and sobbing with mirth for the past fifteen minutes. I’m still wiping away tears of glee and uttering happy little moans.

    I’m afraid I enjoyed it all a bit too much. Something very bad is going to happen to me in my next life, isn’t it?

  73. 73.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    @Tyro:

    And he didn’t drink scotch, wear bespoke suits, or smoke cigars, no doubt because he considered that sort of thing to be a little too “fancy” and wasteful.

    Truthfully, I have nothing against good Scotch…

    Any article of men’s clothing made out of seersucker, I avoid like the plague… along w/ anything pink…

  74. 74.

    Tyro

    Republic of Stupidity, I don’t have anything against a good scotch or nice suits, either. But I don’t go around talking about how cultivating these tastes is “manly.”

  77. 77.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    @Tyro:

    But I don’t go around talking about how cultivating these tastes is “manly.”

    Nor does any sane, self-respecting person I know… male or female… talk about telegraphing your insecurities…

    A friend of mine’s girlfriend bought him a 30 yr old bottle of Scotch for Christmas a couple of years ago. Told me it cost about $300 when he gave me a taste one night.

    Talk about nice… very ‘peaty’… went down oh so smooth.. ’bout 30 sec to min later, got this pleasant burning sensation in my chest.

  78. 78.

    Hiram Taine

    I’m reminded of Robin William’s rant about alcohol from A Night at the Met wherein he says this..

    Beer commercials usually show big men, manly men, doing manly things: “You’ve just killed a small animal. It’s time for a light beer.” Why not have a realistic beer commercial, with a realistic thing about beer, where someone goes, “It’s five o’clock in the morning. You’ve just pissed on a dumpster. It’s Miller time.”

  79. 79.

    Tax Analyst

    @Hiram Taine:

    Beer commercials usually show big men, manly men, doing manly things: “You’ve just killed a small animal. It’s time for a light beer.” Why not have a realistic beer commercial, with a realistic thing about beer, where someone goes, “It’s five o’clock in the morning. You’ve just pissed on a dumpster at the image of yourself in the mirror and some of it is running down into your empty shoes – It’s Miller time.”

    fixt.

  80. 80.

    Tax Analyst

    So being totally gay is Harvey “Manly” Mansfield’s definition of “Manliness”?

    OK, now I’ve got it…(roll a “Men on Film” skit segment from “In Living Colour”).

    I give that “Three Snaps”

  85. 85.

    Chuck Butcher

    To maintain some illusion of fairness I read both articles, well half of Mansfield’s WS one. I have to admit that I’ve seldom had quite that much dissonance going on in my mind – short of a long time ago and some very illegal substances. It is difficult to simultaneously maintain the urge to break into explosive laughter and foaming fury and complete bafflement.

    I’d like to thank you (or hit you) for providing this experience. If this is the top of the conservative thinking…well they’ve got real problems and they’re not named Obama.

  87. 87.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    I gave up on the WSJ interview after all of the blather about honor being a gender linked trait and feminism being bad. Another conservative douche who wishes for the days when he was top dog with no hard work.

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