Ask Big Daddy

Dear Big Daddy,

You’re an old-fashioned guy. What do you think of Ann Coulter’s comment: “If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president”?

–Coulter Culture

Dear Susan B. Atrophy,

People have said a lot of mean, nasty, hurtful things to poor Annie Coulter over the years. I’d like to toss my hat in that ring.

Here goes: Ann, Dennis Kucinich is out of your league.

Don’t feel bad. He’s apparently out of the leagues of most women on this planet. I mean, have you seen Elizabeth Kucinich? Dennis Kucinich may be hardly edging out Mike Gravel in the polls, but if we were voting on first ladies, he’d probably be the frontrunner. Hillary could trot out Bill to get some votes–which would last about as long (4.7 seconds) as it took him to make a pass at Liz K.

What does this have to do with your question? Very little–and is actually the kind of objectification that has driven feminists crazy across many generations. Relax ladies, you’ve moved far closer to parity–in that men are increasingly judged by the same shallow standards. Witness the constant jokes the Elf of the Left has to deal with, say, about always being assigned to guard Robert Reich during pickup basketball games.

We’ve moved on in a lot of other ways. I know I like to play up my old-timey, been-there, bedded-that reputation. But in my day I was as modern as a jet pack (and aged about as well). The subject I was most modern about wasn’t my clothes or my, er, pragmatic sexual morals. It was my belief in equality. Even as a young, poor Okie, I favored equal rights for blacks and other groups decades before it was fashionable.

Now Coulter’s probably right in the claim she makes. But her sentiment is hardly in keeping with the spirit of the Unruh Civil Rights Act. The idea that half the population should be disenfranchised because of the choices they make at the ballot box is one of the most profoundly un-Democratic notions possible. It’s an old saw that the first person to invoke Hitler loses the debate, but many of Coulter’s sentiments map pretty closely to the dictionary definition of fascism.

I’m willing to admit that a lot of Republicans–you know, the millions of sane ones–wish Coulter would just go away. Most important members of the GOP have long shunned her, and many agree that she speaks for no more than a sliver of her party. But I still think it’s worth looking at why she would make this particular comment.

It’s well known that I admire women, sometimes too much. Here’s the thing: When you’re always on the prowl, and when you like to tie two or three or four on, you gotta have a keen eye. I lived through most of that game of gender twister called the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.

I’m not talking about the skyscraping drag queens that hang out near the Capitol these days. It was young straight guys who took on increasing layers of long hair, flouncy clothes and even makeup as the years went on. I got away with a lot in my time, but if I’d ever made a confused pass at some young scheduler with a Prince Valiant ‘do, my career would have been over faster than you can say “Larry Craig Superstar.” So I learned to look for signs–and you gotta be able to see them with one eye closed in a bar so dark you couldn’t tell Pavarotti from my old pal Raquel.

Now Coulter has done an amazing job, I don’t mean to take anything away from him. Despite the 6-foot height, lantern jaw, and utter lack of womanly curves, he nearly pulled it off.

But underneath that jaw is a Granny Smith so prominent I want to bake a pie–and I’m hardly the first to notice. If Coulter’s fans spent a little more time in parts of Frisco named for decrepit reds, they wouldn’t be fooled so easily. Though if they weren’t fooled so easily