Square

Now I'm playing it real straight, and yes I cut my hair
You might think I'm crazy, but I don't even care
Because I can tell what's going on
It's hip to be square
--Hip to Be Square, Huey Lewis and The New

We sell 'em missiles, We sell 'em tanks
We give 'em credit, You can call up the bank
It's just a business, You can pay us in crude
You'll love these toys, just go play out your feuds
--Highwire, The Rolling Stones

__________

RealClearPolitics.com ran a piece speculating the reason behind the fervent calls for Hillary's capitulation lies in her anatomical difference from the majority of the power elite ("Trying to Push Hillary Aside"):

"Now Clinton's methodical, dogged history of work for the Democratic Party is treated just like the methodical, dogged histories of so many women in the workplace: Having come this far she must not go too far. She must step aside to take the smaller office, with the lesser title and the lower pay to make room for the younger guy with the thinner resume. And please, would she just go quietly like a good girl?"

She presents and is represented as hectoring, measured, whining, grating, possessing a teacher-like voice. This adds up to one annoying woman. Certainly not any woman who you would like to watch sashaying down a runway, and isn't that mostly why we like to watch women?

We like to watch them scale the heights that their femininity can gain them -- such as Jessica Simpson's keeping her football hero man Tony Romo off the gridiron, and later, the scadenfreude that comes with their inevitable fall from grace

Men are told by women what to do since they are little boys. Mothers, grade school teachers, girlfriends and wives. . . they are tired of it, and not going to take it anymore. Culturally, the battle of the sexes is same as it ever was. Some maneuvers become more background, some more foreground, but parity is never reached.

Pretty little Nancy Pelosi is a woman who gets away with being House Speaker because she is brilliant and eloquent, and wears heels and suits that show her weight-proportionate knees, and smiles when Dick Cheney talks, even if she does wish to wretch. She is a funambulist, which is what a successful woman must be in our society.

Hillary is like a man in sheep's clothing. She does not know how to look at a man or woman in a way that says, "I'll wager you'd be fun in bed." She doesn't flatter nor ingratiate nor insinuate in those ways that emanate from either a natural charisma, or a lifetime of practice.

Ultimately, that flirtation is why most people like others and vote for them. "He is a good-looking man," as my grandmother said of Mr. Reagan. It is the Sally Fields' moment: You like me. Or at least, you are like me, which is a close enough approximation for our selfish genes to recognize.

Hillary is favored with none of Bill's natural talent in that arena. She is a wonk, with a lifetime of book learnin', but female non-player wonks do not make it to the highest echelons of power. We have not come that long of a way, baby.

The topic of Mr. Clinton's indiscretion with Ms. Lewinsky became a topic of discussion in a class of mine at the time. There was a clear racial divide between those who were outraged by his behavior and those sympathetic. The black students took the French view: he was just a man, doing what men do, but he got caught. The women were his fiercest defenders.

One cannot imagine such sympathy being transferred to Hillary. She is not a good 'ole girl. In that dialectic, she is to be the long-suffering servant. Instead, she has chosen to be disobedient and insubordinate in her project to "dethrone" Bill. She is harsh, and that is unforgivable, except by other women unfortunately so-labeled.

Historically, U.S. black men got the franchise before women, via the 15th Amendment (1870) vs. the 19th (1920.) A man of color will be accepted to the office of president before a woman by virtue of his anatomical affiliation with others in power.

Alice Eagly, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, agrees: “In general, gender trumps race. ... Race may be easier to overcome.”

People will not be wowed by charts and figures. They want something that looks way different than the nasty white men who got them into this fix. Obama looks different. Appearances are convincing.

Change, American-style. Game-set-match.