The Ask Like A Man blog returns with a post on John McCain: the manlier candidate?

A hundred years ago, during the U.S. Democratic primary, when Hillary Clinton still seemed to be actively attempting to take a flamethrower to her party’s chance to win the election, I debated posting something about the various candidates and how they measured up on the patented Act Like A Man-o-Meter.^{1And, despite the often-repeated-but-hard-to-swallow cries of sexism from Clinton and her campaign, she of course scored as more of an alpha jock—in fact being an eerie sort of Bizarro Dubya—than any kind of wimpy victim.} But halfway through a post about how Hillary’s campaign was actually based on the kind of classic macho bullying^{2in this case, dressed in a pantsuit} that is mistaken for manliness among the poorly endowed^{3between their legs or between their ears, or both…}, I realized I didn’t need to pick a fight with all the perpetually offended victimologists who had by then begun hunting wild misogynists who dared to claim Hillary was the engineer of her own demise.

But the gist of the analysis, strangely, has consistently appeared obvious to me in the McCain-Obama dynamic from the beginning, ready for translation to the updated state of the race. But then I took a sort-of-unscheduled hiatus. And slowly others even seemed to start to notice the dynamic, such as Noam Scheiber of The New Republic, who wrote a post entitled “McCain’s Manliness Problem” a few weeks ago.

(What, you want my reaction to the just-finished Canadian election? How about: you can’t tell people anything. The worst thing about Dion’s EPIC FAIL is that it almost certainly ruins the carbon tax as a concept for everyone, and that is a damn shame for reasons I explain here. Other than that, I said my piece the morning after the election here.)

So now I’m back.

And even as John McCain appears to be doing to his election campaign as he did to five different planes^{4 that is, crashing it}, he’s still pissing me off. Because somehow he manages, in the public imagination, to continue to appear to be some kind of ultra-manly hero next to effete liberal Obama, when something like^{5if not quite} the opposite appears true to me. Obama’s likely triumph appears to me to be a clear triumph of acting like a man over acting like a guy, and it would be a shame if people saw it as some kind of illustration of why manliness is outdated and ineffective. It’s all about the perception of what “manly” should mean.

Here’s the mythological McCain we all know and love: a war hero who put his country before his life under torture in a prison camp; who came home to serve his country; who is an ethical purist and (until recently) a proponent of clean fighting in the ring and on the campaign trail; one unafraid to flex foreign policy muscle when needed, but also unafraid to lay the boots to his own party when they deserve it; and above all Mr. “Straight Talk,” comfortable shooting the shit with Jon Stewart because he’s such an all-around good guy.

What that story is about is manly virtue: strength, courage, honour, integrity. That story, however, isn’t very close to the truth.

For a blow-by-blow dismantling of the myth, read Tim Dickenson of Rolling Stone here. Here are the broad strokes: born into a line of admirals, he was a vastly incompetent student and navy officer who relied on the influence of his father to keep him out of trouble. He displayed outright cowardice in at least one fire aboard an aircraft carrier, hiding rather than helping while 130 of his fellow crewmen died and then abandoning the survivors. He repeatedly violated the military code of honor to get special treatment as a P.O.W.^{6Yes, I realize he suffered greatly. Yes, I think it’s a tragedy. No, dear god no, I would not ever want to trade places and yes, I may well weasel out too if placed in a similarly horrifying situation. But I’m sorry, I don’t see surviving a horrific experience as an immediate qualification for heroism. My grandfather lost a leg in World War II and never claimed it qualified him for anything except a veteran’s pension, and he mostly just never talked about it. In fact, he got angry if other people talked about it, usually.}

Upon returning, McCain displayed a weaselly careerism and shamelessly cheated on his disabled and disfigured wife before abandoning her for a rich young heiress. He used the money and influence of his new in-laws to launch a political career. He got caught with his hand in the till—intervening on behalf of a friend who showered him with gifts (and his wife with money in the form of investment opportunities) in a breach of ethics that ultimately led to a bank failure and cost taxpayers tens of millions. He admitted nothing but naivety and began to be a big mouth on behalf of ethics reform, even while continuing to cozy up to lobbyists and to use his influence on behalf of his friends. He was an opponent of the loony conservative base when it benefited him politically and then became their biggest standard-bearer when that would benefit him more. He stood on principle for clean campaigning until he decided he could only win by fighting dirty. Through it all, he is vain, tempestuous, hotheaded, unafraid to shout “do you know who I am?” or cuss out his wife in public and, above all, willing in no case anyone can point to to ever put anything before his own self-interest. And all the while he’s strutting around making a big show of what a man he is.^{7I’m reminded of the old saying, “The louder he spoke of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons.” Beware a man who is always said to be reluctant to speak of the one thing he’s always speaking of.}

So he’s a politician who comes not exactly as advertised: what else is new? Well, he embodies some key elements of what I’ve been thinking about lately, and of the distinction I’m trying to draw between acting like a man and acting like a guy. He, like George W. and like just about every dude you see scrapping in a bar, is not really concerned with being a man, or with embodying the characteristics on associates with manliness^{8honour, courage, honesty, responsibility, etc.}. He is primarily concerned with appearing to embody those characteristics, which is something else entirely.

For me it boils down to the difference between pride^{9which is a quality of big-league men, as both virtue and vice} and vanity^{10which is absent or at least suppressed in what I’d call real men}. The two words appear closely related and are sometimes used interchangeably but are in fact pretty much mutually exclusive. It takes some parsing of dictionary definitions but here’s the difference: pride is satisfaction and confidence in one’s worth or in the worth of something one is associated with, while vanity is an excessive and boastful satisfaction with—and obsession with—one’s appearance. The former is displayed in confidence, calm and self-assuredness. The latter is neurotic and quick to take offense at any hint of criticism. Pride is rooted in core beliefs and actual experience, and therefore has no need to constantly prove itself. Vanity is a projection of desire and a reflection of self-doubt, and therefore needs to advertise itself constantly seeking reinforcement. A proud man can have his confidence shaken by evidence he has lost. A vain man is outraged at merely being called a loser. That’s a fundamental difference.

So, John McCain? Just a cranky, vain old man. And not much of a man at that, if you ask me. And in that, he’s just one of a legion of machismo artists who have spent a few generations giving men a bad name. This is one of my key points in the project behind this blog: it isn’t about what you look like. It’s about what you do, and what you are. And those obsessed with appearances generally have next to no substance.

As for Barack Obama? I drank the kool-aid a long time ago. Here’s a good start to explaining some of why.

So the hiatus is over. Give me a few posts to work the cobwebs off.

And if John McCain has a problem with me, he can say it to my face. If any of the rest of you have something to say, feel free to use the comments section.