DU Article by punpirate: The Costs of Tough Talk

The Costs of Tough Talk
January 29, 2004
By punpirate

Something's been bothering me about the electoral process of late. I keep wondering why there is so much emphasis on the war experiences of candidates, and the general weirdness of the logic in weighing one candidate over another in this regard.

I'm not picking on any particular candidate here - rather, I suppose I'm picking on the press for seeing military experience as some defining quality, good or bad, especially when there's an underlying agenda in attacking a candidate.

What's at work, I think, is a sort of myth-making that has nothing to do with military service, but a great deal to do with the perception of candidates' attitudes about their willingness to use the military and supporting the military-industrial complex. There are good soldiers and bad soldiers, just as there are good dentists and bad, good plumbers and bad, good politicians and bad. Not everyone with a title or a professional degree was a 4.0 student.

Americans are all for peace, except when their politicians are in favor of war. The history of the United States in the last hundred years or so is not one of uninterrupted peace, but, rather, has been one of brief periods of uncertain calm punctuated by war and a steady determination to expend significant public funds on weapons and to encourage American businesses to sell war materiel to as many countries as possible. And yet, we have rarely embraced any candidate who actually ran on a platform of avoiding war, and this has been particularly true since WWII. Before that time, rarely did military experience or attitude figure prominently in candidacy.
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read the full article:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/01/29_tough.html

punpirate is a New Mexico writer who thinks talking tough has bigger costs than we realize.

say that they trust Bush to protect them, it does seem legitimate for the media to talk about the Democratic candidates and that issue.

I am so ABB that I don't take sides with any one candidate in this forum, but I do think that the Democratic party needs to win some of the white male votes that have gone so heavily toward Republicans.

Unfortunately, these males want a macho candidate. That's why I like seeing Kerry throwing a football and playing hockey. I like seeing pictures of Clark in uniform. Of course, Dean was not in the military but he certainly can't be criticized for being a wimp.

I think the best way to show Bush up as being phony macho is to put him up against genuine macho.