Word: 1950s
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This may be a slightly skewed reading of the political style of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, but it gets at something real. On the eve of Father's Day, these men are straight off a 1950s Hallmark card. These guys are guys. They're guyish. The model of their masculinity is definitely retro--stern dads in suits and ties, undemonstrative, matter-of-fact, but with alleged hearts of gold. They tend not to explain much, and they're not the best at intimate chats or hand-holding sessions. Like most dads from the 1950s, they also tend...
...triggered by some deep psychological need, we lapped it up. It was as if Cheney had walked onto the stage, looked straight in the camera and asked, "Who's your daddy?" The heart attacks complete the picture. What other cultural symbol captures the essence of the 1950s dad--the man shouldering the responsibility, absorbing the stress and eating mounds of steak...
...course, both Bush and Cheney are reconstructed figures from the 1950s. Bush talks about his "heart" a lot; he is comfortable touching others in a way his father's generation wasn't. He is at ease around professional women. Even Cheney, in his way, has evolved. In his close relationship with his lesbian daughter Mary, he has obviously dealt with a subject matter no 1950s father would have gone near. But just when you think Cheney might be all wet, look at what gets him excited: energy policy, defense restructuring, tax cuts. He likes areas where you can get things...
...voters just backed softhearted new father Tony Blair over the stiff upper lip of William Hague. I admire the Bush-Cheney style, but it doesn't soothe a somewhat pampered public. If the Republican leaders don't adjust a little and add a patina of 1990s sensitivity to 1950s propriety, they may find the voters looking to other models of fatherhood to keep them happy...
DIED. ARLENE FRANCIS, 93, witty 1950s television personality and fixture on the show What's My Line?; in San Francisco. Francis appeared in movies, on Broadway (the 1942 comedy The Doughgirls) and as TV co-host of the 1950s morning show Home. But she found her highest calling guessing other people's occupations for 25 years as a panelist on one of television's classic game shows...