Fox News' Brit Hume yearns for the day when men could be men and little habits like aggressively berating anyone who dared criticize them was seen as a manly trait, not as being a bully. A cultural move away from true manliness, he explains, is the root of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's problems:
Howard Kurtz: So what about this bully narrative?
Brit Hume: Well, I would have to say that in this sort of feminized atmosphere in which we exist today, guys who are masculine and muscular like that in their private conduct, kind of old fashion tough guys, run some risk.
Lauren Ashburn: Feminized?
Kurtz: Feminized.
Hume: Atmosphere.
Kurtz: By which you mean?
Hume: By which I mean that men today have learned the lesson the hard way that if you act like a kind of an old fashioned guy's guy, you're in constant danger of slipping out and saying something that's going to get you in trouble and make you look like a sexist or make you look like you seem thuggish or whatever. That's the atmosphere in which he operates. This guy is very much an old fashioned masculine, muscular guy, and there are political risks associated with that. Maybe it shouldn't be, but that's how it is.
Yeah, maybe a muscular guy's guy like Christie should be able to scream at whoever he wants! Damn these women for creating an atmosphere where, after a man's man's senior staff gridlock a town for days in petty political retaliation, the old-fashioned guy's longtime habit of screaming at people with less power than him causes people to suggest that maybe the gridlocking and screaming and the long list of other acts of petty retaliation have something in common, and maybe that something is that the muscular guy in question is kind of a bully. What's next? Will this feminized atmosphere lead to trouble for masculine politicians who just want to kick puppies while heading into strip clubs to conduct campaign meetings?
All I can say is, poor Chris Christie. It must be hard for him to have come of age in such a sorry, feminized time when his muscular, masculine, guy's guy-type habits of political retaliation and publicly yelling at people without microphones eventually, after years of power and public attention, get him in trouble.