I think the phrase, in fact the entire context, is more than apt when reading today's post by Glenn Greenwald. Apparently, last night Chris Matthews went all bubbly over Fred Thompson and his sex appeal (typing that sentence actually hurt my fingers). From there, Greenwald goes on to highlight the macho yearnings of such stalwarts of machismo as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Reynolds. The litany of desire, a kind of liturgy to recover lost true-manliness that Greenwald writes about - not in some attempt at psychoanalyzing them; rather he hoists them upon the petard of their own words - is not only embarrassing and sad, it also gives one a sense of relief when one considers that we are nearing the end of the reign of Rush over our national discourse. Indeed, at one point, Greenwald notes that, while formerly much of what is now explicit was implicit, what makes all this gushing over guys by guys so odd is its blatant nature. The easiest explanation, and I believe the most true explanation, for this phenomenon is simple; these folks hear, dimly yet growing louder each second, the tolling of the bell that signals the end of the reign of lugubrious idiots such as Limbaugh, self-promoting non-intellectuals like Reynolds, and just plain oddballs like Matthews. This is the equivalent of ripping off the masks at the end of the ball in Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" - it's put up or shut up time, and these folks are putting up before they are forced to shut up.
Greenwald ends his piece as follows (I would encourage all to read it in its entirety, even though you may want to rinse in cool water afterwards):
None of this is about psychoanalyzing anyone. Unfortunately, all of this comes explicitly from their own mouths, and is tragically unavoidable. And there is simply no way to understand our degraded political discourse and the radical militarism of the last six years without thinking about these twisted character traits, which their carriers tout quite overtly and even proudly.
One of the points Greenwald makes, and it is unavoidable, is that the three men he highlights - Limbaugh, Reynolds, and Matthews - carry on about true masculinity, fearing the wimping out of men and boys across America, and urge a new cult of manliness upon us all even as all three are poster-children for what happens when boys don't play sports as children. Glenn Reynolds is a self-professed nerd, preferring time in his basement with electronic toys and gadgets to interacting with people. Limbaugh is, well, Limbaugh, smoking fat cigars and going to sex-tourism spots with bottles of Viagra that aren't his (there would be so much there for a therapist to work with . . .). Chris Matthews just seems to advertise his desire for a macho man to lead him. None of them, however, possess even a smidgen of the qualities they insist real men in our society must have if we as a nation are to survive. Like Hitler going on and on about the greatness of the Nordic race, all those blonde-haired, blue-eyes supermen, while Hitler was of average height, has brown hair and eyes, and despite several years in the military (one can say what one wishes about him, but Hitler was no coward when it came to battle), had a softness about him in his later years, including a noticeable paunch that no amount of tailoring could hide - these three men insist that others gain qualities that are quite obviously beyond their own capacity to gain at this point in their lives.
These three are the grotesque creations of a broken media and national dialogue. These last dregs from the bottom of the barrel that make up the "substance" of much of there talking and writing only show how sad, pathetic, and really risible they are. Yes, they cause us all to cringe with embarrassment. Yes, one refrains from doing all sorts of armchair psychology only with severe self-restraint. Yes, most of us wish they would all just fade away, like all old soldiers do (except, of course, none of them were soldiers). We are left, jaws agape at the the sheer audacity freedom grants these men, night after night, day after day, to advertise to the entire world that they, the true arbiters of truth and heterosexuality, desire nothing less than an entire generation of real men to admire and to whom they can surrender all.
How sad.
