Not Cute

[poliphilo]

When you become a senior politician (not to mention President of the United States) there are certain things you forgo. And one of them is cuteness. There is no way you can hold the fate of millions in your hands and be cute.

It doesn't matter how wise and beloved you are or how devious and hated. Abraham Lincoln and Richard M Nixon are equal in this. They are neither of them the least bit cute.

Cuteness is bound up with being small and helpless and vulnerable and pretty. Cuteness and power don't mix.

Which is why George Bush talking to his doggies in the Oval Office is so utterly embarrassing.

Comments

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I dispute your premise:

"Cuteness is bound up with being small and helpless and vulnerable and pretty. Cuteness and power don't mix."

My board chair (male) is very powerful in the Philadelphia cultural and heritage community. And he's cute as a bug. Sometimes cute as two bugs. so there.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I think we'll just have to agree to differ there.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Surely. I happen to believe that many powerful people are cute. As for playing with their doggies: consider FDR; consider Queen Elizabeth.

Part of the issue here, I think, is that, for the folks who don't like Bush, *everything* he does strikes the wrong note.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Yeah--I can't imagine him as "cute" under any circumstances.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't have a problem with the dogs (though I'm a rabbit man myself) but the blatant use of the dogs to soften the image of the leader is (I think) misjudged.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I don't have a problem with the dogs (though I'm a rabbit man myself)

I think you are delightful.

:)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks ;)