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Marjorie Garber and Erik Tarloff

the breakfast table
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from: Erik Tarloff

Gravitas ... and Frivolity?

Posted Monday, Sept. 11, 2000, at 2:47 PM ET

Marge,

I never thought I'd be exchanging public electronic correspondence with my former landlady. Life sure has a way of throwing curve balls, doesn't it?

For the record, and before we move on to other matters, let me take this opportunity to say you were as good a landlady (or landlord for that matter, seeing as how gender issues seem to be on the table) as I've ever encountered. I can't remember even one area of contention between us, serious or trivial. And my whole family has happy memories of your beautiful Cambridge house. The memories are especially warm for me, I think, since it was there that I wrote the first draft of my current novel, The Man Who Wrote the Book. Which may have been the most purely enjoyable writing experience of my professional life.

And since your new book is actually about houses, it does all seem to fit, somehow. If one is willing to stretch a little.

I'm not sure I agree that gravitas is regarded as an exclusively male quality. Contrary to what you suggest, I believe Dianne Feinstein is generally considered to possess it, as is Katharine Graham, say, and Susan Sontag. And as for the late Golda Meir, fuggeddaboudit. But you're surely right that the line between gravitas and pomposity is a very narrow one, and that Dick Cheney plops right over the edge. Which reminds me of a wonderful story, possibly apocryphal, dating back to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Apparently James Madison and a few other delegates were discussing what an intimidating figure George Washington presented, and someone offered Madison a bet that he couldn't approach Washington, clap him on the back, and greet him familiarly by his first name. And Madison took the bet, but then, when push came to shove, found himself unable to do it, frozen into silence by the general's fierce visage.

Would Washington have been considered "wooden," do you think? Other than his teeth, I mean.

The gender discrepancy in voting patterns, although the size of it varies from race to race, has been a constant for a very long time (you are misremembering the earlier statistic, incidentally, although Gore's lead among women has widened dramatically since the convention). If women alone had voted in 1980, for example, Jimmy Carter would have served a second term. And for that matter, Robert Frost, discussing "The Death of the Hired Man," suggested that Mary's voice represents the Democrat point of view, and Warren's the Republican. So those gender differences go way back, although, on the other hand, I've always found Abraham Lincoln to be a sort of maternal figure.

No speechwriters? Listen, since I never did it professionally, although I did lend a friendly hand with some of Clinton's and Gore's speeches, I don't interpret your suggestion as a personal affront. But even Washington had help with some of his speeches, help from Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson. Quite a company! Even better than the combined talents of Ted Sorensen and Peggy Noonan. And Lincoln, surely as fine a writer of political prose as this country has ever produced, used an edited passage originally penned by William Seward as the peroration of his first inaugural address. So, while I agree that an articulate president is a desirable thing, and Gore certainly has Bush beat in that department, I think your prescription may be excessively draconian.

I do want to say a few words about the Wen Ho Lee case before I close my first letter. What I want to say is this: What a fucking outrage!

Racism was indubitably a factor in his 18-month ordeal, but it's only a part of what makes the story so outrageous. The FBI's manufacturing of incriminating evidence and hiding of exculpatory evidence, Bill Richardson's fearful, self-protective willingness to blame his predecessors and throw Dr. Lee to the wolves, Sen. Dan Burton's publicity-seeking, demagogic zeal to lynch him, the general impression conveyed that the nation's security has been irremediably compromised (it now appears that no information at all was lost), the government's unwillingness to admit its error and free the man ... It's hard to know where to start and where to end.

There's an old right-wing saw that a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged. Your townsman, Alan Dershowitz, cleverly countered that cliché with the observation that a liberal is a conservative who's been indicted. Wen Ho Lee has been mugged and indicted, and both by the U.S. government. This has all been a good reminder of why the Bill of Rights is still relevant, and why the "criminal-coddling" ACLU is indispensable.

Now, having said all that ... do you think can I have my cleaning deposit back?

Erik

the breakfast table
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from: Erik Tarloff

Gravitas ... and Frivolity?

Posted Monday, Sept. 11, 2000, at 2:47 PM ET
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Marjorie Garber is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at Harvard. Her most recent book is Sex and Real Estate: Why We Love Houses (click here to buy it). Erik Tarloff is the author of Face-Time (click here to buy it) and the newly published The Man Who Wrote the Book (click here to buy it). Click here to read this discussion from the beginning.
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Reader Comments From the Fray:


As for why women like Gore and men Bush? Simple: Romance and Presents. A big kiss for the wife, free pre-school for the kids and free medicine for Gramps. Gore's the national dream husband. Meanwhile, the men of America put their hands on their wallets which have just become perceptibly lighter, and furrow their collective brow as they tot up the trillions in taxes for the aforementioned goodies. Pikers! Don't they love their wives? How can they begrudge them the important things in life, paramount among them the free time to sit on the couch and watch Gore on Oprah? Gore's next initiative: a national program of heart-shaped chocolate boxes.

--Josh May

(To reply, click here.)

[Note from the Fray Editor: Hmm. That should go down well in The Fray. So, we are sure, will Tek's view that gravitas, like penetration, is male. Other ideas:]


Thanks Marge. You didn't mention reparations [see last week's Breakfast Table] and you got in the obligatory digs at George W. Bush. You have gravitas. Big time.

--WillV

(To reply, click here.)


The last female politician to have "gravitas" was Margaret Thatcher. She didn't care whether or not she was part of the old boy network. She did not sit around and whine about the glass ceiling. She did not toe the liberal/socialist line or care whether or not people loved her. She ignored all the experts, and just went with what she believed in and to hell with the polls.

--Dean W.

(To reply, click here.)


The gender gap is due to gun control.

I can't tell you how many working/middle class white men I've heard that say something like "I'm pissed with the Democrats that they keep making me vote Republican, but I strongly believe in the second amendment." For women (and men) who support or don't mind gun control, it's not a voting issue, because no one believes gun control will substantially reduce violence. And what's most irritating to this yellow-dog Dem is that actual steps Dems take are not that threatening, even if you are strongly against gun control. It's merely the rhetoric about "taking on the NRA" etc etc which is driving away working class white men in droves.
What's annoying to me is how the media is ignoring the issue. Media people will talk about the kiss, empathy, social programs (men don't want health care and education?), the Mommy vs. Daddy party, blah blah, but are completely oblivious to this particular 900 pound gorilla. And the polls don't ask questions on gun control either, so no-one sees how big (or small) its effect is. I find the combination of media obtuseness on gun control combined with endless (uninsightful) analysis on the gender gap really pretty irritating.

And Ms Williams, if you believe Wen Ho Lee was being railroaded, how come you haven't written any columns on it? Or on the fraudulent Cox report?

--Roublen Vessau

(To reply, click here.)
[Note from the Fray Editor: probably because she's actually Marjorie Garber. Marjorie Williams is over at Slate's Book Club.]


Erik, your story about Washington's steely (not wooden) character is true in essence, except it was Mad Anthony Wayne boasting after a cavalry skirmish that he was afraid of nothing in this world. Hamilton then gestured to Washington, who had just entered the room and was warming himself at the fireplace. "Go, then, and clap our general on his back, and hail him as a good fellow," said Hamilton. "No, I think I will decline the honor," replied Wayne.

Many share your outrage about Wen Ho Lee. Can you see why we reprehensible unreconstructed conservatives are always in such an uproar about the left's perpetual ambition to increase the power and reach of the Federal government? And I agree that the ACLU is a useful organization, though they should be admonished to change their name to the American Civil Liberties- Except-for-a-Phrase-in-Amendment-One-a-Clause-in-Amendment-Two-and-All-of-Amendment-Ten Union. Truth in advertising, you know.

--Aristophanes

(To reply, click here.)
[This is the post mentioned by Erik Tarloff in Monday's entry.]

(9/11)

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