Can a Man Become President?

By Sherman Yellen, Huffington Post. Posted October 11, 2005.

As one looks toward the next Presidential election, assuming that our democracy can survive this presidency, the question we often hear is "Can a woman become President?" This reflects upon the interest in Hillary Clinton and her ability to be elected in a Presidential race. A more pertinent question may be "Can a man become President?" In asking this, one is obliged to define what one means by a man, something far different from the male who currently occupies our White House.

Let's consider the last election. The perception was the George Bush was the more manly candidate. He spoke with a western twang, walked with a swagger, appeared to be decisive, and clearly had no use for the effete Eastern liberals, intellectuals, and the sissy boys who waffled about at the U.N. Despite the fact that the twang and the swagger were cultivated by this Eastern prep school boy with Yale and Harvard degrees, Bush was considered the more "authentic" candidate by a great many voters and pundits who found John Kerry "inauthentic" with his educated Bostonian ways, actual war heroism, and his inability to take a stand and stick with it right or wrong for life.

As one who would not want to sit down and share a beer with George Bush, or go windsailing with John Kerry, I have my own definition of "man" and I would like to apply it to the qualifications for our next President.

A real man should be capable of flip-flopping on any issue at any time. It is an essential element in thinking and living. There is no way to grow as a man without changing one's mind from time to time. The inability to change an opinion when life and events prove your original opinion or decision wrong, is not a manly quality. It is the quality of those who prefer to be deluded by life, rather than taught by it. The best thing that could be said of Kerry, who ran an overly cautious, defensive campaign that lacked the courage he showed in life, was that Kerry flip flopped on the issues. It meant that he was a man capable of growth.

Thank God for flip floppers. History shows that Lincoln was a champion flip flopper, changing his views on slavery as he developed in his life, Teddy Roosevelt was a flip flopper, a hunter who protected the environment, an American aristocrat who sought to protect the worker from the very ruling class he was born into, and protect industry from the trusts. FDR's elitist views were tempered by the times he lived in. Harry S. Truman, a small town man with a limited background was capable of making great decisions, based upon his ability to learn on the job, starting the movement towards Civil Rights in the military.

George Bush can never flip flop. He cannot change his mind, because it is a lazy mind, incapable of the activity required for flip flopping which can be a wrenching experience. Between the flip and the flop is a lot of mental and moral activity. He is far from stupid, but lacks that curiosity which allows for growth and change. By "sticking to his guns" he thinks he is acting as a man should act, standing by his principles, while in fact all he demonstrates is his inability to tolerate change and the weakness of those principles.

Sherman Yellen is an Emmy-award winning screenwrighter and playwright.

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