Ann Quindlen - A Foul Mouth And Manhood

MSNBC - Newsweek Columnist: "Slinging obscenities has always been the verbal equivalent of towel snapping; cursing the senator, who has harped on Cheney's connection to defense contractor Halliburton and its connection to lucrative contracts in Iraq, was the closest the vice president could come to throwing a punch.

To appreciate just how much of this is macho, consider what the response would have been had Sen. Hillary Clinton used the same word the vice president (or Senator Kerry) did. Or look at an exchange on CNN about the Cheney remark. Tucker Carlson accuses Paul Begala of being "angry, like a little girl." Begala says Cheney is "a baby—he needs a diaper." Whoa. Testosterone alert, big time.

One interesting aspect of this presidential race is that by traditional standards, Kerry has the masculinity factor sewn up; an inveterate jock and a war hero trumps a former cheerleader and a stay-at-home guardsman. But in recent years the Republican hard guys have taken over the Y-chromosome territory from the feel-your-pain Democrats, and Bush's persona—the reformed party animal, the laconic rancher, the anti-intellectual C student—dovetails perfectly with the Zeitgeist of the new GOP. When he said that he wanted Osama bin Laden dead or alive, it was a John Wayne moment.

Macho posturing has always been part of politics; it's one reason women have found it hard to break into the business. But what constitutes male is in the eye, or the ear, of the beholder. "