"Still, Cruz and Christie possess a key similarity: an abundance of old-school manliness."

"Sure, one is a twangy Texan with that shit-kicking, boot-wearing thing going on (despite being a double-ivied, cosmopolitan kind of guy). The other is a Jersey bruiser, with a (much-discussed) physique reminiscent of Tony Soprano after a doughnut bender. But both are delivering a booster shot of testosterone to the GOP in a way few have managed to pull off of late...."

Writes Michelle Cottle in The Daily Beast (erasing Cruz's Hispanicity and Christie's stomach surgery).

Despite the centrality of this image to the GOP, however, precious few of its high-profile players now are apt salesmen for the manly brand....

As for the current team ... Mitt Romney: too much of a doofus. Paul Ryan: ditto, despite the washboard abs. Eric Cantor: too twitchy (manly men do not visibly vibrate with nervous energy). Marco Rubio: too boyish. Jeb Bush: too soft and measured. With his retro Mad Men groove, John Boehner has the potential to be a Don Draper kind of manly man, but he’s too darn weepy.

ADDED: I looked up "shit-kicking" in the (unlinkable) Oxford English Dictionary. It means, "In early use: worthless, contemptible. Later: designating or characteristic of an unsophisticated person from a rural area; (also) tough, belligerent; cf."

1953   J. Harvey Salt in our Wounds vi. 87   You low-life..shit-kicking..useless bastard.
1972   J. Thomson in J. Malley & H. Tokay Contemporaries 189   A beer drinkin finger poppin shit kickin red neck.
1978   Jrnl. Folklore Inst. 15 264   Shit-kicking villagers wearing whatever it is that villagers actually wear these days.
1987   W. Styron Tidewater Morning in Esquire Aug. 88/2,   I, a shit-kicking Carolina yokel who, when I first met you, suspected you of being a neo-abolitionist.
1992   Playboy Nov. 111/1   He told me not to worry, in that shit-kicking drawl of his.
1998   Esquire May 42/1   This woman is one hot, shit-kicking feminist babe.
2002   L. Coady Strange Heaven i. 6   A pack of g.d. shit-kicking yahoos.

How does that relate in any way to Cruz?

"Walker quietly tops list of GOP favorites for White House..."

"Gov. Scott Walker is the sleeping lion in a list of possible Republican candidates for president in 2016, surging to the top of some politicos’ lists who see his scandal-free past as a big boon. Mr. Walker stands above even 'first tier' Republican candidates like Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Christ Christie, political analyst Larry Sabato with the University of Virginia said, in a report from The Washington Examiner. That’s because he beat a concerted Democratic Party recall effort — and that sets him apart, and above, Mr. Sabato said."

Says the Madison rag The Capital Times, evincing a little too much devotion to Governor Christie.

"While the old guard of the Republican Party was out playing footsie with the president, the new kids in town were talking to the American people about liberty."

Let's get back to yesterday's Rush Limbaugh show. Here's my post about the interview with Rand Paul, noting Paul's accidental revelation that he's no follower of Rush Limbaugh. But before that happened, there was this opening monologue:

[T]he establishment decided to go out to dinner last night.  Obama took McCain and Lindsey Graham and some others, went out to dinner....

Obama, a 20-vehicle motorcade to go to a restaurant for dinner.  A 20-vehicle motorcade to go to a restaurant while the White House tours are shut down because of the sequester....

The establishment goes out, when they got back home they found all the furniture out on the front porch.  The kids had gone crazy.  The kids had thrown a giant party while the establishment was out doing whatever they were doing.  While the old guard of the Republican Party was out playing footsie with the president, the new kids in town were talking to the American people about liberty...

"He did a disservice, a disservice to a lot of Americans to make -- make them fear they're in danger from their government. They're not! They're not!" McCain said, quote, "American citizens have nothing to fear from their government."...

Now, I'll tell you what's happening here, folks, among many other things. McCain and some of these old guard guys are jealous.... Well, right now, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have captivated everybody, and these old guard guys -- these old bulls -- are getting jealous.....

"I have a soft spot for Joe Biden. I like him. But he’s dumb as an ashtray."

Said Roger Ailes. He also said: "I like Marco Rubio.... But I don’t know about as a vice-presidential candidate. He’s a nice guy, and that role requires kicking the crap out of your opponents.

Is it wrong to tweet from the audience at the State of the Union?

Tennessee House Democrat Steve Cohen was only trying to send a private message, but — like your ordinary-citizen reckless idiot — he released it into his public Twitter feed.

Embarrassing.

But in the modern world, how can people today be expected to sit through a 1-hour speech and not fiddle with their electronic devices? Personally, I would lose my mind.

And by the way, how can all these people — some of them quite old — sit still for 1+ hours? They have to be in their seats in advance and remain there for a while afterwards, so the President can make his big entrance and exit. What percentage of them worried about having to go to the bathroom? How many of them took the precaution of wearing adult diapers? How many of them employed the convenience and relieved themselves?

I don't mean to be rude. I just think it's important to recognize our shared humanity. As Marco Rubio said the other day: "I needed water, what am I going to do? God has a funny way of reminding us we’re human." What about the other end of our hydration-related humanity?

Bob Dylan sang: "Even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked." And I say: Even the members of the United States Congress sometimes must have to pee.

And tweet.

Congressman Cotton was excellent on drones and Benghazi on "Fox News Sunday."

(Transcript. Video.) I had never heard of the guy, but he impressed the hell out of me, in part because the host Chris Wallace, introduced Cotton — a Republican from Arkansas — this way:

Congressman Cotton, for people who don't know you, you are kind of an interesting figure. You went to Harvard, you went to Harvard Law School, and then you spent five years on active duty, on the front lines, in Iraq and Afghanistan, so you have got a lot of credibility on this issue on both sides of the equation.

I'm not a complete pushover for credentials, but this made me want to pay attention when Wallace invited him to respond to Senator Dianne Feinstein's idea that we need, as Wallace put it, "a secret drone court, where the president would have to go to get approval before putting terror suspects on his kill list.... How do you feel about this idea? Before the president could target someone for assassination, especially an American citizen, he'd have to go get approval from a judge?"

COTTON: We don't need federal judges involved in sensitive and urgent national security matters, and it would be an unconstitutional infringement on the president's rights to keep America safe. So, if you take up arms against America and you fight in a terrorist training camp or on the front lines in Pakistan or Afghanistan or Yemen, you shouldn't be surprised if America reaches out and exacts justice against you.

A while later, there was a discussion of Leon Panetta's testimony about Benghazi. Co-panelist Bill Kristol went first and laid out the criticism of Obama pithily:

KRISTOL: I think it is genuinely shocking. The president -- Leon Panetta walked out of the Oval Office at 5:30 that night, after a previously scheduled meeting. The president never called -- he knew -- he briefed the president on what was happening in Benghazi and that the American ambassador was missing, and it was clear there could well be sustained and ongoing attacks, and the president never spoke to the secretary of defense or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff the rest of that night, and, interestingly, Secretary Panetta said he never spoke to the White House later this night. So it's not as if he spoke to the national security adviser, Tom Donilon, or the chief of staff, Jack Lew, and said, and conveyed a message to or from the president.

So basically, the president seems to have checked out. He spent an hour that evening on the phone with the Israeli prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, because there has been that flap about Israel at the Democratic Convention the week before, and I think he wanted for political reasons to show that he was in touch with the Israelis. They did a readout of that call, the National Security Council spokesman did. So they're busy talking to the Israeli prime minister, doing the readout of the call for the press, and he is not talking to Panetta and, insofar as we -- and Donilon, apparently, is not talking to Panetta. And it is really, I think, a dereliction of duty on the part of the president and his senior staff, and I think they should be asked about it. I think Tom Donilon, the national security adviser, and Jack Lew, the White House chief of staff, should -- the president did not talk to anyone. Did they even talk to the secretary of defense, or did they just say, do what you can and then totally checked out for that evening, and then the next morning the president goes off to Las Vegas for a fund-raiser?

Cotton followed on, bringing in his military expertise:

COTTON: It is not just shocking, I would say it is outrageous as well, and it shows he has lack of preparation to be the commander in chief and lead troops when they are in combat. You know, you mentioned I was in the Army. At Fort Benning, where I spent a year, you learn the eight-step troop leading procedures. Step eight, the final step, is not issue an order. Step seven is issue the order. Step eight, which is the most important step, is supervise. He said in September that I issued a directive to take whatever steps are necessary to protect our troops and our assets. And then as Bill said, he never again followed up, he never asked, is my directive being executed? That is the essence of leadership, and this is a complete failure of leadership.

WALLACE: What about the argument, Congressman, and I don't know, and Bill raises a legitimate question, maybe he was doing this through his national security adviser.

COTTON: What General Dempsey and Secretary Panetta said, indicates there was no further contact from the White House, and the president showed no curiosity at all. He had a conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu that was in the middle of [the] political season when he was receiving criticism for not being engaged with the prime minister, and then probably preparing to fly off to Las Vegas the next day for a fundraiser.

When you have troops in contact -- when I was in Afghanistan, we had troops in contact. I was right next to the radio, monitoring that at all times. When the president has troops in contact in an embassy that he knows is insecure, that has to be the very first priority.

Cotton also got my attention earlier in the show when Wallace asked whether the decision to have Marco Rubio deliver the GOP response to the SOTU makes him "the new face of the Republican Party on Capitol Hill."

COTTON: I wouldn't say that decision makes him. I think he has been an emerging leader on Capitol Hill for Republicans, and across the country for two years now. He's a generation of new leaders, not just Marco, but Paul Ryan and Scott Walker and so forth, who are emerging and who I think are going to be the leaders of our party going forward.

So, wanting to portray Rubio as not The One but part of "a generation of new leaders" and needing to name some names, Cotton comes up with Paul Ryan — the erstwhile VP nominee — and — of all the others — Scott Walker. I read that out loud and Meade deemed it time to play the Governor Walker anthem one more time:

Rubio: "The president clearly outlined that he was gonna push on [immigration], the media was gonna focus on this..."

"... the Senate Democrats were gonna push on this issue, and I thought it was critically important that we outline the principles of what reform is about."

Look, I think there's this false argument that's been advanced by the left that conservatism and Republicans are anti-immigrant and anti-immigration.  And we're not.  Never have been.

On the contrary, we are pro-legal immigration.  And we recognize that our legal immigration system needs to be reformed.  We also recognize, because conservatism's always been about common sense, that we do have an existing problem that needs to be dealt with in the best way possible.  Now, it was dealt with in 1986 in a way that was counterproductive.  Well-intentioned, but counterproductive because, A, they granted a blanket amnesty to three million people at the time, or that was the estimate, and, B, they didn't do any of the enforcement mechanisms.  And so our point is if we're gonna deal with this, let's deal with it once and for all and in a way that this never, ever, happens again....

In the absence of stepping forward with our own principles, the left and the president will tell people what we stand for, and it's not necessarily gonna be true.

Much more at the link. (It's an interview conducted by Rush Limbaugh.) You see what Rubio is saying: The President and the congressional Democrats, with the help of the media, have the power to forefront this issue and to make it work powerfully for their political benefit. If the Republicans hang back, they will get portrayed as villains. So it was necessary for Rubio to step forward and be the face of the Republican Party to give it some chance at looking at least somewhat good as this issue plays out.

Take the exam in Althouse's on-line class in media bias.

First, read this post about Dana Milbank's description of the way Senator Marco Rubio looked as he waited his turn to speak about the bipartisan immigration plan. Note the literary techniques he employs. He seems to be describing what he sees, but I implied that his descriptions revealed bias, and, indeed, that Milbank would like to destroy Marco Rubio.

Now, here's a video clip showing Marco Rubio giving his presentation. Feel free to listen to what he says, but I want you to concentrate on Senator Chuck Schumer, who can be seen at the left of the screen. Observe any gestures or expressions, because the assignment will involve describing him, deploying literary techniques of the sort we saw in Milbank's description of Rubio.



Here's the assignment. Write 2 descriptions of Schumer, in the style of Dana Milbank's description of Marco Rubio.

1. You are the equivalent of Milbank, but attuned to the goals of the Republican Party. You would like to impede the advancement of Chuck Schumer.

2. You are a Milbank-style columnist at a place like The Washington Post, and you'd like to further the political career of Senator Schumer.

Cast a critical eye on your work. Are your 2 descriptions equivalent? They should be equally accurate, equally presentable as journalism, equally in service to your political agenda.

What have you learned from this exercise? Has your respect for Milbank grown or shrunken? Explain.

Dana Milbank says "Marco Rubio was a bundle of nervous energy" who "poked his tongue into his cheek, he clenched his jaw, and he licked his lips."

"[A]s he waited his turn to speak about the bipartisan immigration plan he had helped to draft... He fiddled with his suit-jacket button once, then again, then a third time. He rubbed his fingers together, then interlocked them."

And I'm a bundle of nervous energy, poking my tongue this way and that, clenching my jaw, licking my lips, fiddling with buttons, rubbing and interlocking my fingers, as I watch to see how the media goes about accomplishing its plan to destroy Marco Rubio.

"A working group of senators from both parties is nearing agreement on broad principles for overhauling the nation’s immigration laws..."

3 Democrats and 3 Republicans — Durbin, Schumer, Menendez, Graham, McCain, and Rubio — "have been meeting quietly" and are about to announce their proposal, the WaPo frontpages:

The new effort was spurred in large part by the growing influence of Latino voters who strongly backed President Obama and other Democrats in November.

Interesting how that energizes both parties to act. A fascinating political game, which includes not only the reform itself but also — whether the reform occurs or not — the way various political actors look as they relate to the proposal for reform. It's sure to be a garish spectacle. In this political theater, who's most likely to take pratfalls on the public stage?

The senators are expected to call for normalizing the status of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, including allowing those with otherwise clean criminal records to obtain legal work permits, officials said. The group is also likely to endorse stricter border controls and a better system for employers to verify the immigration status of workers.

It was not clear, however, whether the final agreement will offer guidance on perhaps the thorniest issue in the immigration debate: what mechanism illegal immigrants could use to pursue full citizenship.

Here's a chance for Republicans to stop being "the stupid party" — as Bobby Jindal advised recently — and to become the truly smart party. Don't appeal to fears. Don't resort to ideology. Actually figure out the right answer on the basis of sharp economic thinking, and be prepared to explain it clearly. It seems to me, we have 11 million undocumented immigrants working in this country because they are serving our needs. My hypothesis is: We don't kick them out because we want them here, whether we admit it to ourselves or not. That's why we don't get tough. We still talk about getting tough and kicking them out — and walling out additional migration — because that appeals to emotion and tracks habitual thinking. But what's really happening? What have we really been doing all these years? How can we align the official policy with reality? That's how I'd like to see Republican politicians sharpen up, become the smart party, and show leadership.