The Character of America: Manliness as a substitute for the Intellectual

I have not been paying too close attention to the commentary of of Senator Obama's speech, "A More Perfect Union." Unfortunately, I heard some. On my drive from campus to Home Depot and while listening to one of MSNBC's program, I heard the same argument from Sean Hannity and Pat Buchanan. It goes like this:

For over 20 years, Senator Obama was a member of his church where the pastor delivered anti-America (or maybe more precisely, anti-white) comments. When Obama heard those comments, he should have gathered his daughters and walked out of the church, which would symbolize his disgust with the comments. Real men and, hence real presidents, announce their disgust with a topic, message, or speaker and then leave the debate.

Tragically, this argument has a few consequences.
(1) The inflammatory comments symbolize all of Rev. Wright's work and deeds (synechdoche) as the man is just evil.

(2) Political judgment does not concern listening to opposing viewpoints but only rejecting positions in protest and without contemplation.

(3) There can be no debate on the misuse of military force (as Wright did) as the use of force, when leaders commit us, is always necessary.

(4) Never expose you children to viewpoints that are "bad"; never explain them except as being "bad." Fathers are decisive and, more importantly, correct.

(5) Leaders are people that act and do not contemplate as Senator Obama should not have analyzed the logos but walked out over the pathos.

In these situations, according to Hannity and Buchanan, Senator Obama needed to be a "Man" in that Tony Soprano "I Am a Man, M-A-N" sort of way. Or Senator Obama needed to be a "Strong Father" and removed his daughters from the vile nature of the church. The judgment of Obama correlates to how well he displayed his "manliness" in the situation, i.e. rejecting the message in protest without analyzing the message as Gary Cooper would have done.

Unfortunately, no longer (if ever) should politicians and presidents think or intellectualize about the problems of race in the United States. For Hannity and Buchanan, it should never come to that as Tony Soprano would have walked out the door in his best imitation of President Bush's Bravado. Who needs to read when one could clear brush or visit the Bada-Bing.