Paternal Politics

Now that Jesse Jackson has reassured us about Barack Obama's genitals, it's time to consider what prompted the Reverend's rage--the candidate's criticism of African-American fathers for failing their children--as part of a larger subtext of this election.

On all sides, it involves issues about American manhood in the 21st century and the troubling rites of passage from one generation to the next.

Start with George W. Bush who was moved to take up a war left unfinished by paternal prudence and turned toward "a higher Father" for guidance.

Enter John McCain, son and grandson of Admirals who, after writing "Faith of My Fathers," is campaigning for the White House based on the premise that the Head of State in an age of terror should be a reassuring paterfamilias.

Then there is Obama, searching for a father he never knew in "Dreams from My Father" and, in his presidential campaign, calling out men who aren't there for their children and challenging them to take up their responsibilities.

Add to the oedipal mix the outraged reaction of Jesse Jackson's son at his attack on Obama for raising such questions, and there is an overarching issue about American manhood in our time.

Aside from all else, voters will be choosing between John McCain's macho approach and Barack Obama's nurturing, protective style at the head of the national table.

Hillary Clinton's candidacy would have raised the question of whether such gender stereotypes are the only choices, but the answer to that will have to wait for another time.

Obama-McCain: Manhood Now and Then

In the wake of disputes over sexist treatment of Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama offer, among other contrasts, a confrontation between old ideas about manhood and new--the hard-drinking, womanizing Navy flyboy turned politician and the New Age husband in equal partnership with a powerful wife.

Stereotypes, yes, but the biographical facts are beyond dispute. On his nostalgia tour after clinching the nomination, McCain talked about misadventures in the places he was visiting.

"I remember with affection the unruly passions of youth," he said in Meridian, Miss., where he had organized an off-base toga party for military buddies and local girls.

At his Virginia high school, he recalled that his disobedience earned him the nickname "worst rat" for sneaking away to Washington burlesque houses and bars.

Outside the Naval Academy in Annapolis, McCain described "nocturnal sojourns" and the hundreds of miles he was forced to march for insubordination.

"I wanted," McCain recalled in Pensacola, "to live the life of a daring, brash, fun-loving flyer...In truth, the image I aspired to was, in the end, only irresistible to one person--me, and it was a very childish attraction."

McCain's vision of manhood comes from life as a carousing son and grandson of admirals and then his sobering experiences as a POW and a Washington politician.

Obama, on the other hand, as he tells it in his books, was an uprooted young man searching for a sense of the father he barely knew and, despite experimentation with drugs, a serious and ambitious young man, described as "grounded, motivated and poised" by his peers.

As they present themselves to voters this Father's Day weekend and beyond, McCain and Obama are both remarkable products of their life histories, representing a contrast in styles of American manhood that go far beyond their other generational differences.

Exits: Paul Newman and Robert Redford

“Certain friendships,” Robert Redford once said about Paul Newman, “are too good and too strong to talk about.” This month, Redford broke his silence to say that the final movie they planned to make together was not to be:

"It's not happening, sadly. Paul and I were planning to do a film version of Bill Bryson's wonderful book ‘A Walk In The Woods.’

"I got the rights to the movie four years ago, and we couldn't decide if we were too old to do it. Then we decided, 'Let's go for it.'

"But time passed, and Paul's been getting old fast. I think things deteriorated for him. Finally, two months ago he called and said, 'I gotta retire.' The picture was written and everything. It breaks my heart."

Like their other work together, it would have been about the friendship of men, two old college buddies walking the Appalachian trail from Georgia to Maine.

Toward the end of life, biology is destiny. A British actor of the past century, A. E. Matthews, who worked to the age of 90, explained, “I get up every morning, look at the obituaries in the Times and, if my name isn’t there, get dressed and go to work.”

But last spring, the 82-year-old Newman told an interviewer, "I’m not able to work at the level I would want to. You start to lose your memory, you start to lose your confidence, you start to lose your invention. So I think that's pretty much a closed book for me."

Redford at 71 has a new picture coming out next month, “Lions for Lambs,” which he directed and plays a leading role in. More polemical than his previous work, Redford hopes the movie will encourage young people “to take command of their voice" in American politics.

Over long careers, Newman and Redford personified an alternative American manhood to the full-throttle macho of John Wayne and the young Clint Eastwood--a more complex mix of strength, wit and sensitivity. (Newman turned down "Dirty Harry.")

Off-screen, they lived away from Hollywood--Newman in Connecticut, Redford in Utah--lives of social responsibility rather than movie-star celebrity.

In 1968, my path crossed Newman’s as we both stepped out of our working lives to oppose the war in Vietnam. When I invited him to lunch with a dozen magazine editors, he told me the prospect of talking about himself was so unnerving he had stayed too long in a steam bath to calm down. Sitting next to him, I had to titrate the balance of beer and ice water to keep him relaxed and hydrated as he eloquently described his feelings about the war.

In the early 1980s, our mutual friend A. E. Hotchner wrote about their light-hearted efforts to bottle and sell Newman's salad dressing. Since then, a line of Newman's Own products has earned $200 million for charity.

Meanwhile, Redford was creating a mecca for independent film makers in Sundance, Utah and giving their work recognition and commercial opportunities.

As Newman exits from the public stage and Redford keeps working for the public good, those repeated showings of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" on TV are reminders of how much actors can accomplish in what we call real life.