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Paul R. Hollrah, O.E.

Testosterone Shortage Strikes GOP
December 15, 2009

Medical dictionaries tell us that testosterone is an anabolic steroid that is produced in the bodies of both males and females. And while females are, from a behavioral standpoint, more sensitive to the hormone than males, an adult human male produces, on average, about forty to sixty times more testosterone than an adult human female.

 

In the human male, testosterone plays a key role in the development of uniquely male physical characteristics... male sex organs, facial and body hair, muscle mass, and vocal quality. It is also thought to be a major contributing factor in the level of competitiveness and aggressiveness among males.

 

However, Deborah Blum, author of Sex on the Brain, tells us that there's a lot of "quick political reaction” to theories about a cause-and-affect role for testosterone in competition and aggression. She says, "Feminists become understandably annoyed by the oversimplified, back-to-the-kitchen notion that women don't have the hormonal underpinnings for competition. And plenty of men...masculinists, if you like...are equally annoyed at being dismissed as a bunch of naturally bad-tempered apes."

 

Clearly, Ms. Blum has not spent a great deal of time around conservatives and Republicans in recent times. At a time in our nation’s history when events call for conservative leaders to be "naturally bad-tempered apes,” almost to a man, those of the male gender who speak for conservatives and Republicans are milquetoast wimps. It’s almost as if conservative and Republicans had been tossed into a gigantic centrifuge and spun until all of the testosterone resided in the bodies of conservative women.

 

On the Republican side of the aisle in Congress we find few truly courageous and outspoken members. Senators Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma are exceptions. Coburn is an outspoken critic of wasteful government spending and unworkable healthcare reform, while Inhofe plays that same role on cap-and-trade and other environmental issues. What is needed is for Republicans in Congress to emulate former senator Alan Simpson (R-WY), a man who was never at a loss for words.

 

When asked why they are not more aggressive in their response to Democrats and their policies, Senate Republicans would likely murmur something about the Senate being the world’s foremost "gentlemen’s club.” A "gentlemen’s club” run by the likes of Harry Reid and Dick Durbin?

 

Whatever strength of character the Republican Party enjoyed during the Reagan years quickly dissipated when Reagan left the White House and George H.W. Bush moved in. In October 1986, Vanity Fair published a feature-length article titled, "Is George Bush too nice to be President?” In preparing the article, writer Gail Sheehy traveled with the Bush campaign for weeks, during which time she interviewed dozens of Bush’s senior advisors, campaign aides, closest friends, and family members. She asked all of them the same set of questions, one of which was, "What is it that George Bush feels passionately about?”

 

Not surprisingly, none of the people closest to Bush had a ready answer...not even his own wife. After thinking for a moment they all came up with inane responses such as "Peace,” "Justice,” or "Fairness.”

 

Then, after being elected, Bush thought he could make a gentlemen’s agreement with House and Senate Democrats to sign some targeted tax increases...mostly federal user taxes that did not affect the general public...in exchange for the Democrats’ agreement to cut federal spending. It must have come as a huge surprise to him that there is no honor among Democrats. He signed their tax increases and then sat back to await the spending cuts...which never materialized. The Democrats merely laughed at his gullibility and used his "read my lips, no new taxes” pledge to defeat him for reelection in 1992. He never once mentioned the Democrats’ treachery in his own defense.

 

In 1994, Newt Gingrich and other Republicans signed a "Contract with America,” promising much-needed reform in Congress. The voters responded positively and Republicans experienced four productive years between January 1995 and January 1999, conducting themselves as we would expect them to. But then, when Gingrich chose not to seek reelection in 1998, the House leadership fell to Dennis Hastert (R-IL) and Tom Delay (R-TX)...both of whom set about organizing a congressional majority that was indistinguishable from Democrats.

 

Hastert and Delay were still there when George W. Bush arrived on the scene in 2000, cozying up to liberals and the mainstream media by claiming to be a "compassionate” conservative...Apparently unaware that conservatism was and always has been the soul of compassion, it was further proof that Bush really didn’t know what it meant to be a conservative. And when he failed to use his veto pen even once to restrain a profligate Republican Congress, it was clear that he was also a stranger to traditional Republican values.

 

What Bush and the Frist-Hastert-Delay Congress did was to make it impossible for lifelong rank-and-file Republicans to defend the party that has always been the last best hope for America.

Who can deny that the ultimate fate of our country was set in concrete during the Roosevelt Administration when New Deal Democrats decided that political power could be solidified by purchasing the allegiance of special interests...interest groups and individuals who wanted something from government...and using other people’s money to do it?

 

The Democrats accelerated their march toward a socialist Utopia with the New Frontier and the Great Society of the Kennedy-Johnson era, they gained momentum during the Carter and Clinton administrations when they decided that they could solidify the black vote by forcing banks to make mortgage loans to people with little or no ability to repay the loans, and they reached full fruition in 2008 when they elected an ineligible Marxist to the White House, elected a San Francisco radical as House Speaker, and gained a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, led by the Searchlight, Nevada flash, Harry Reid.

 

The complete socialization of America and the destruction of the capitalist system has been the sole raison d’être of the Democratic Party for more than seventy-five years, and were it possible to paint a picture of what party leaders have seen as their ultimate dream during all those years, the Obama Administration and the Pelosi-Reid Congress would be their ideal. The current crop of Democrats in the White House and in Congress are simply the most evil and corrupt group of politicians ever to set foot in Washington. It is Chicago-San Francisco-Las Vegas social and political morality transported to Washington and customized to engulf the entire nation.

 

One political commentator described the current status of Obamacare as "a moment in history.” To which syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer responded, "Yes, and Waterloo was also a moment in history.” At a moment in history when all but a few national Democrats appear intent upon committing political suicide, there are few competent leaders on the Republican side to urge them on and to hasten the day.

 

As matters now stand, the shortage of testosterone among conservative and Republican men is so critical that, as conservatives move to capture the ground that Democrats abandon, we will likely be led by women and minorities.

 

Among the most effective and outspoken conservative women we have Michelle Bachman, Tammy Bruce, Amanda Carpenter, Mona Charen, Linda Chavez, Liz Cheney, Ann Coulter, Monica Crowley, Carly Fiorina, Mary Katharine Ham, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin, K.T. McFarland, Angela McGlowan, Kate Obenshain, Sarah Palin, Star Parker, Dana Perino, Frances Rice, Kathy Rothschild, Phyllis Schlafly, Teri Thompson, and Meg Whitman...to name just a few. They are joined by a growing number of strong and eloquent black men, such as Herman Cain, Jay Parker, Rev. Wayne Perryman, Lt. Col. Allen West (USA, Retired), and Walter Williams.

 

But where are the truly fearless conservative white men...the "naturally bad-tempered apes” of whom Deborah Blum spoke? In the eleven months since George W. Bush left office, Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress have blamed him for almost everything but the sinking of the Lusitania. Dick Cheney has not taken it lying down; he has attempted to set the record straight. But Bush has spent full time turning the other cheek...by his silence, lending credence to the charges made against him.

 

Has Vanity Fair ever received an acceptable answer to its question? It should be obvious to all by now that George H.W. Bush was too nice to be president. But now we can add Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and John McCain to the list. Because liberals and Democrats are what they are, the last thing the country needs is wimpish "nice guy” Republicans in the Oval Office. If they don’t possess enough real testosterone to act like "naturally bad-tempered apes” when the occasion demands, then we don’t need them. They can fall into the ranks with the rest of us.


About Paul R. Hollrah, O.E.
Paul R. Hollrah is a freelance writer. He is a member of the Civil Engineering Academy of Distinguished Alumni at the University of Missouri - Columbia and a Senior Fellow at the Lincoln Heritage Institute. He currently resides in Tulsa, Oklahoma.