RUSH: As a setup to the story CNN did defending the Breck Girl against allegations that his looks are a factor in the election, a story here that I found Friday night. This is from LiveScience.com: “Man-Of-Steel Mentality Helps Guys Heal Faster.” Now, we’ve heard all the stories over the years about how men don’t ask for directions, despite taking wrong turns all the time. Just being individual, “I’m going to do it on my own! I’m going to get there on my own! I’m not going to stop and ask somebody directions,” and all these other clichés. “The stereotypical ‘tough guy’ or ‘real man’ rarely asks for help or shows signs of weakness, because then he wouldn’t be a guy, right? While many scientists have considered these masculine tendencies to be barriers to health and recovery,” meaning if you don’t ask for help and you don’t admit your weakness, then that’s a sign of a lack of health and a chance to recover and get stronger and so forth.
However, “a small study of about 50 men suggests the opposite. The man-of-steel mentality, often associated with military men and those in other high-risk occupations, can boost and speed up a guy’s recovery from a serious and/or traumatic injury possibly. ‘It has long been assumed that men are not as concerned and don’t take as good of care of their health,’ said lead study author Glenn Good of the University of Missouri, Columbia, ‘but what we’re seeing here is that the same ideas that led to their injuries may actually encourage their recovery.’” Even though it’s not cited here, I recall the story we had last week that talked about genius men, creative men, and how it’s impossible for them to stay wedded to one relationship. They’re constantly out there needing new challenges and new thrills because they’re easily bored and it’s this high-risk-taking factor of creative men. Einstein was cited as an example. You wouldn’t believe the number of guys I had, friends of mine, e-mail me wanting copies of that to show it around, because after that story, every guy that heard it thinks he’s a creative genius now — as a means of, I guess, granting him the internal authority to proceed as he wishes.
So here we have this story about how man of steel mentality may get guys in trouble, but it also helps them heal faster. ‘The annual incidence of traumatic brain injuries in the United States is greater than that of all cancers, Good writes in his study, and men account for three-quarters of such injuries. The number will increase if the Iraq war continues, he said. … But, men who focused on their careers, success, power and competition reported better relations in their community.’ The docile wusses, the pansies, the linguini spines, were miserable, and they’re always waiting for feedback. They’re waiting for approval to make them feel good about themselves because they don’t have the innate ability to do it within themselves. Men who focused on their careers and their success and their power, the man of steel mentality participants showed greater improvement a year after their hospitalization.
”The immediate message here is to encourage psychotherapy along with traditional methods of healing,’ Good said. Therapists trying to help men recover from serious injuries could encourage men’s masculine tendency to seek success but discourage them from believing it’s appropriate to exert power over women, he wrote.’ I don’t know what that is all about. Had to drag that in there. But anyway, just another one of these clichés that may be willing to fall by the wayside which, of course, takes us to the Breck Girl. CNN is very disturbed that there are assaults on the manliness of the Breck Girl that are taking place out there. Carol Costello in this report Friday on the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.
COSTELLO: It’s sad how much looks play a part in this election. As for John Edwards, there is an orchestrated campaign. The politics of pretty is getting ugly. Now that he’s front and center and looking fabulous in a laid-back GAP kind of way, [he] has paved the way for his political enemies to brand him the equivalent of a dumb blonde. Take a peek at Rush Limbaugh’s website. Edwards appears in a wig, and Limbaugh often refers to him in feminine terms.
RUSH ARCHIVE: Also we’ve decided any further John Edwards news we will use this tune as official update theme for the Breck Girl.
CNN AUDIO: (Helen Reddy’s ‘I am Woman.’)
RUSH ARCHIVE: Are you listening, Ann Coulter?
COSTELLO: All of this climaxed with neocon Ann Coulter’s now infamous Edwards slur. Some say it was meant to further feminize Edwards, to make him appear weak. As to why neocons would pick on John Edwards? Well, one pundit says some believe Edwards is the guy who will eventually move to the head of the pack, and this is the strategy they’re using to cut him down early. Others told me it was just mean-spirited fun.
RUSH: That is a pathetic report. In the first place we don’t use Helen Reddy, Carol. We use the Breck Girl singing the song. I’ll let you hear it. We’ve been calling him the Breck Girl since 2004. Where have you been? It was a woman who referred to him as potentially the first female president. It was Kate Michelman who said that of all the men out there, John Edwards has the greatest ability to get in touch with women. For some reason he understands them better. Of course, this led to the claim just like Bill Clinton is the first black president, that the Breck Girl could be the first female president.
We’re just reacting here to what Democrats are saying out there. Well, we did invent the Breck Girl. It’s a take-off on the hair.
Now, Carol Costello. Somebody call her up, and tell her next time she does this report, this is the tune to use. This is the official John Edwards Breck Girl Update Theme Song.
(Playing ‘I am Woman’ parody song.)
RUSH: All right, there you have it. A little bit of ‘I am Woman.’ That’s Paul Shanklin’s vocal portrayal there impersonating the Breck Girl. How about the opening line of Carol Costello’s story, “It’s sad how much looks play a part in this election. As for John Edwards, there may be an orchestrated campaign out there.” Carol, we’re not part of anything that’s orchestrated here. We are the leaders — and if there are followers, more power to us.