David Brooks’ twisted “manhood”: Questioning Obama’s masculinity isn’t just racist, it’s wrong

[DonViejo]

Obama foreign policy's rooted in successful realist tradition. Questioning his manhood is rooted in white supremacy

PAUL ROSENBERG

This just in: New York Times columnist David Brooks and NBC’s Chuck Todd want you to know that President Obama has “a manhood problem” — or at least the appearance of one. That’s the conclusion the two white men reached on “Meet the Press” on Sunday (transcript), following comments by another white man, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Corker warned, “I think we’re going to lose eastern Ukraine,” which would be “a geopolitical disaster,” resulting from “an era of permissiveness the U.S. has created around the world.”

But that perception doesn’t only belong to Republicans. No, it was international, Brooks claimed:

Basically since Yalta we’ve had an assumption that borders are basically going to be borders and once that comes into question if in Ukraine or in Crimea or anywhere else, then all over the world all bets are off. And let’s face it, Obama, whether deservedly or not, does have a — I’ll say it crudely — but a manhood problem in the Middle East. (editor’s note: the bolding is ours) Is he tough enough to stand up to somebody like Assad or somebody like Putin? I think a lot of the rap is unfair but certainly in the Middle East there is an assumption that he’s not tough enough.

And Todd asserted that the Obama administration itself shared this perception:

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http://www.salon.com/2014/04/22/david_brooks_twisted_manhood_questioning_obamas_manhood_isnt_just_racist_its_wrong/

[merrily]

1. Brooks has a journalist problem.

But, at least he does self-identify as a conservative. Pathetic as it is to have that be your one good point, at least he is up front about his bias.

On the other hand, Chuck Toad continues to pretend he is an honest, objective commentator, telling everyone what's what with the "Democrat Party" and the "Democrat President."

[libodem]

2. Wait until

You see what they will say about President Hillary ' s womanhood. Brace yourselves. They know no boundaries. And they have no shame.

Oh they are all about DEMANDING apologies when they feel offended just don't ever expect them to admit any wrong doing. Ever!

[BeyondGeography]

3. I didn't even know eastern Ukraine was ours to lose

[djean111]

4. My thought exactly.

Such hubris. And from armchair and keyboard warriors.

[Smarmie Doofus]

6. Neither was China in the 40s - 50s but that rallying cry....

... "Who lost China?", launched a thousand ships ( literally) and even more than a thousand demagogic political careers.

[radicalliberal]

8. What do they want the U.S. to do? Send troops to the Ukraine?

As much as I feel for the Ukrainians, another war simply is not an option. We've already had two wars since 2000. A third war would bankrupt us for sure!

[BeyondGeography]

9. Nothing less than kicking off WWIII will begin to redeem Obama's manhood

[Sunlei]

5. R news needs to discuss the science just reveled,light skin color was simply a mutation of darker.

Or just drop the skin color crap totally from political discussion.

[CTyankee]

7. it strikes me that Brooks has a manhood problem, maybe due to the effects on

him from having his wife divorce him. I may be wrong, but I discern a strange kind of "lost" quality in his writing and speaking...he seems to be detached from reality, to what is really going on and he persists in his kind of fantasy world...very strange indeed...

[DavidDvorkin]

10. It's not racist

It's a ploy Republicans use with every male Democrat. Republicans are always manly and virile and Democrats are always wimpy and possibly gay, no matter what their skin color.

[awoke_in_2003]

13. as evidenced...

by their treatment of Kerry in his presidential bid.

[DavidDvorkin]

14. Yes

And Dukakis.

[awoke_in_2003]

15. Oh, they ripped Dukakis up...

I forgot about that one.

[Cosmocat]

20. There is nothing they do with Barrack Obama that the didn't do with Bill Clinton

it is the same playbook.

Same thing they did with Gore, Dean, Kerry in campaigns.

The problem is the flaccid press that at best allows it and as in this case gleefully parrots it.

[Paladin]

11. Brooks has devolved into a national laughing stock. Nothing he says matters in any way. (nt)

[ablamj]

12. I heard Brooks

Was one of Obama's favorite columnists. I wonder if he still is....

[dionysus]

22. .

[Jamaal510]

16. I'm Black, but

even I don't get how questioning Obama's manhood is racist. Now with schuck-and-jive comments? That's racist. Biggest food stamp/welfare president? Definitely racist. Continuing to question Obama's citizenship despite evidence? No doubt! However, manhood is a totally different ballpark as far as I'm concerned. I'd categorize Brooks' comment more as an idiotic cheap shot, and I think people shouldn't keep sounding alarms over comments like this one that have nothing to do with race whatsoever. It'll make others take our POV less seriously in the future and even grow more resentful.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

17. In a fistfight? Quite possibly not, that's why he has an army.

But asking the question "is he tough enough" rather than "will he make the right decisions" is a bizarre thing to do about a man whose job is to sit in the White House and make choices, rather than to fight Assad and Putin bare-knuckle on a rope bridge over a canyon of lava while being snapped at by lava-alligators.

[BainsBane]

18. Quien es mas macho?

I'll go with the leader of the free world.

[McCamy Taylor]

19. Kerry has the manhood problem in the middle east. Hillary took the State Department balls with her

when she left. Sorry, but I call them as I see them.


This is, of course, a joke, for anyone who is tempted to running crying to the mods that I have hurt their feelings as a man. Not that Kerry has time to read DU, being SOS and all.

[Cosmocat]

21. Yes, the President that took out Osama Bin Laden

has a "manhood" problem in the Middle East, whereas the jackass that spewed, "wanted, snort, snort, dead or alive" only to not get him, HE was a MAN'S MAN!

JACKASSES