Tom Brokaw, David Gregory, and Chris Matthews daintily allude to Obama's masculinity deficit.

On yesterday's "Meet the Press," Tom Brokaw said it was "just inexplicable" that the Obamacare website "suddenly landed the way that it did, in utter chaos." The President should have pressured "Kathy Sebelius and other people" about the "rollout" which was "going to be our big play for the second term."

"Big play" picks up on that football metaphor Obama used 4 times in his November 14th remarks. "We fumbled," he said, though in real football, it's an individual player who fumbles. But here was this "big play," and somebody fumbled. Was it "Kathy"?

The moderator David Gregory, immediately steps up to frame the next question in macho terms: "Who's got the muscle?" The manly (though 50-years-dead) JFK somehow shoulders his way into the conversation. Gregory turns to Chris Matthews and says:

You were making the point to me this week about, you know, where's his Bobby Kennedy? Who's got the muscle? When the president says, and he did say, "The user experience of this website is everything," who had the muscle in the White House to get it done and make sure the president gets what he wants?

Muscle, muscle, muscle. If a right-winger had phrased the question that way, somebody would call this misogyny. These 3 men — Brokaw, Gregory, and Matthews — are hankering for a muscular man who can nail the big play. He depended on a Kathy when he needed a Bobby. And here's what Chrissy Matthews said:

Everybody goes to their battle stations when there's chaos. 

I'll see you your football metaphor, and raise you a military metaphor.

You always go to where you've been arguing before. But I've always been arguing this president doesn't have a chain of command, a very clear line of authority and unique responsibility. I remember Sebelius, who I like of course, most people do like her, she's a public servant. 

She's liked. Kathy's likeable enough. She's a good servant.

But when she was asked, "Who's in charge?" in that committee, under oath, she started to talk about someone, the head of C.M.S., who handles Medicare and Medicaid. Among 30 or 40 other responsibilities, this person had the rollout responsibilities.

And was "this person" male or female? Female. Marilyn Tavenner. Can you say her name without vaulting back in time to your old macho icons Jack and Bobby? They knew what "responsibilities" to give their Marilyn.

Matthews reaches even further back, to an even manlier man:

Look at Japan, the occupation of Japan, it simple: Put one guy in charge, Doug MacArthur. 

Put one guy in charge. Doug. Call him Doug, not Douglas. Not — in the style of "Kathy" — Dougy. He's Doug. And there was a guy! Put one guy in charge.

You put somebody in charge and they're uniquely responsible for its success or failure. Obama doesn't do things that way. He's got floaters, like Valerie Jarett, floating around. 

Floaters. Like Valerie Jarrett. The disrespect! They can't even spell her name right in the transcript. Floaters, like Valerie Jarrett, floating around. Matthews being a good Democrat somehow feels secure that the double meaning of "floaters" won't bring on the accusations of racism that would surely have burst forth if a Republican had talked about Jarrett like that.

He doesn't want to have a real chief of staff, like a Jim Baker.

He's saying — it's hardly subtle — that Jarrett's not a real man. You need a man. A man like Bobby or Doug or Jim.

He doesn't want to give authority to people, and I think it's been a real problem.

So what does this say about Obama, not wanting to bring in real men, who take charge, who make the play, who exert authority? He's not man enough to work alongside real men? He needs to play with the ladies, ladies who don't know their place — who dither and float?

"In 1961, Vogue magazine said that 'almost every famous female head in the world has gone or will go' to Kenneth..."

"... the hairdresser who created Jacqueline Kennedy’s legendary bouffant and softened the golden locks of Marilyn Monroe.

In 1954, Mrs. Kennedy, newly wed, arrived at the salon and asked for Lawrence, who usually did her hair. Lawrence was not around, so the receptionist paged Mr. Battelle.

Mrs. Kennedy had what was called the Italian cut, which he felt was too short, layered and curly for her tall proportions and big bones, he told Vanity Fair in 2003. He decided to stretch it out by setting it with big rollers. But rollers as big as he wanted did not exist then, so he had some specially made, out of Lucite.

After John F. Kennedy became president, Mr. Battelle perfected the bouffant style that became associated with Mrs. Kennedy. He thought the look would lengthen her head and balance her broad cheekbones. He used some hair spray, but allowed a few wisps to fall away to make her look less “set.”

Goodbye to Kenneth Battelle, who had so much to do with the way women looked in the 1960s. He was 86.

"This is so much worse than raw eggs in milk that I drank for the Marilyn Monroe diet, I kind of can't believe it."

"If pneumonia were a food, this is what it would taste like."

This = 2 raw eggs beaten into orange juice, because that's what Greta Garbo had for breakfast.

Breitbart wants to go after news outlets "that hide behind this patina of entertainment in order to promote a left-wing agenda."

Says Ben Shapiro, who's especially eager to "smack Politico across the face." Of course, exposing the bias in reporting that might be mistaken for neutral is what the internet is for. One must pick apart the rhetoric of others.

It can get tedious, however, to just be saying over and over that Politico or Buzzfeed leans left. Or, as they say at the right-leaning Breitbart promotes a left-wing agenda. Please. They are not that exciting. They are much more lame and flabby than that. Don't accidentally compliment them. Agenda! It sounds so officious.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines "agenda" as "A campaign, programme, or plan of action arising from a set of underlying principles or motives. Hence: the underlying intentions or motives of a particular person or group."

1976   Newsweek 19 Apr. 23/1   Their hope is that the party..would opt for youth and freshness. ‘Those folks who have their own agenda for Hubert underestimate Jerry Brown’, says one California politician....
1991   C. Paglia Sex, Art, & Amer. Culture (1992) 73   That girl had her own agenda..trying to glom onto the Kennedy glamour!

That's not a reference to Marilyn Monroe, by the way. After making an appearance in post #1 of the day, Marilyn would seem magical is she popped up here too, but Camille Paglia was talking about the William Kennedy Smith rape trial.

And can you hide behind a "patina"? The OED defines "patina" as "A thin coating or layer; spec. an incrustation on the surface of metal or stone, usually as a result of an extended period of weathering or burial; a green or bluish-green film produced naturally or artificially by oxidation on the surface of bronze and copper, consisting mainly of basic copper sulphate."

1748 H. Walpole Let. 6 Oct. in Corr. (1974) XXXVII. 297, I wish you could see him making squibs.., and bronzed over with a patina of gunpowder.

One must pick apart the rhetoric of others.

And speaking of neutrality and smacking in the face... the Althouse blog agenda is cruel neutrality.

Sonia Sotomayor and Rita Moreno — on stage together for 90 minutes.

One's a 58-year-old Supreme Court Justice, the other's the 81-year-old actress who was in "West Side Story," but put them together and you've got 2 Latinas. It's a show! Maybe we can find some federal judge with Greek ancestry to do a show with George Chakiris....



He's dreamy. And only 78.

What do you ask them? George, how did you get your hair to look so great? Were you really one of the dancers in Marilyn Monroe's "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" routine? What did you and Marilyn gossip about?

Oh, but wait. That's not the show. The show is Sonia and Rita!

“I’m a raucous Puerto Rican!” she told the room. “I like to sing, I like to dance, I like to drink, I like to get buzzed.”

Guess which she? Hint: She had sex with Marlon Brando.