
The other night I saw Joe Biden on TV and he was asked if he would consider picking someone like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo as his running mate. Biden said he was committed to selecting a woman candidate for vice-president and I thought that sounded OK unless you were the woman selected.
That woman might be a little nervous because Biden has a history of creepy behavior around females.
A woman has accused him of sexual assault; Biden’s campaign says it’s not true, so probably too soon to have a strong opinion about that, but there is plenty of evidence that Joe has made lots of women uncomfortable with his overly-familiar behavior.
Plenty of photographs showing women wearing the facial expression of someone who just had an ice cube slipped down the back of her dress, while Joe leans in from behind to sniff their hair or – in at least one case – kiss the back of their head.
(If you’re a Trump supporter who’s going to use that as evidence that people shouldn’t vote for Biden, all I can say is: really? Compared to Joe Biden’s antics, your candidate is Vlad the Impaler.)
So while I was drawing the above cartoon I started thinking about the companion piece that would go with it and came up with a theory: politics on either end of the spectrum attracts more nerds per capita than professions like big-game hunters or Acapulco cliff divers and those nerds are really clumsy when it comes to dealing with women.
Nerds in politics
Think about it:
Mitch McConnell: nerd.
Chuck Schumer: nerd.
Lindsey Graham: nerd.
Nancy Pelosi: whatever the female version of a nerd is (nerdette?) and I know for sure because I saw video of Nan trying to get funky at Dave Chappelle’s Mark Twain Prize ceremony. If they ever make a sequel to White Men Can’t Jump Nancy Pelosi could star in White People Can’t Dance.
Now take my politics = nerds theory back in history.
Abraham Lincoln was a great president but I’m guessing the girls at Log Cabin High – “Home of the Fightin’ Rail Splitters” – were not lined up in hopes that Honest Abe would invite them to Homecoming.
George Washington had wooden teeth, Woodrow Wilson looked like a pissed off librarian and Richard Nixon was so physically uncoordinated he couldn’t run a tape recorder without ruining his presidency.
Nerds, nerds, nerds.
So I had my theory all polished up, ready to go and this piece was originally titled Nerds in politics…and then I thought of JFK.
Maybe it’s money
Say what you will about John F. Kennedy – and there’s a lot to say on both sides – but I don’t think you could call him a nerd.
Good-looking, funny and a war hero and when it came to presidential affairs, he set the bar pretty damn high. (I try not to get overly judgmental about other people’s’ marriages, because nobody knows what goes on between two people in private or why they behave as they do.)
According to at least one internet source, JFK was rumored to have had affairs with – among others – Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich and Angie Dickinson.
In comparison to Kennedy’s All-Star lineup, Bill Clinton had an affair with a White House intern and I was going to make some cutting remark about shooting fish in a barrel until I saw that JFK was also rumored to have an affair with a White House intern.
Hmmm…
OK, so nerd theory out the window; maybe the cause of so many politicians being weird around women is explained by wealth and privilege.
Apparently, Joe Kennedy – John’s dad – would come around and give a goodnight kiss to any girl who happened to sleep over at the Kennedy compound and claim it was a “family tradition.” Well, the Borgias also had a family tradition, but that wasn’t right either.
George H.W. Bush – Dubya’s dad – was outed for asking women if they knew his favorite magician and saying “David Cop-a-feel” while grabbing their ass. Donald Trump thought it was OK to grab women by their crotch.
Being rich and thinking you can get away with anything because you always have in the past, was my new explanation for men’s boorish behavior.
But after giving it some thought, that theory didn’t hold up either because plenty of dudes without money act like jerks around women.
Age
OK, so maybe these guys are pulling the same stuff they did as young men, but now that they’re old and wrinkly and liver-spotted, women don’t respond like they used to.
Nope, that theory doesn’t cut it either because I doubt young women would have thought a young Joe Biden sniffing their hair was a cool move or a young Donald Trump grabbing their crotch was acceptable behavior.
So there are politicians who aren’t nerds, poor guys who act like jerks and young guys who still make you want to go “Ewwww!”
So I came up with the only theory that covers all the bases.
Lack of cool
Some guys are cool, some guys aren’t and maybe that’s as complicated as it gets.
Then I tried to define “cool” and that wasn’t easy either. (Clearly, sheltering-in-place has given me too much time on my hands, but this is the kind of thing I think about on one of my numerous walks.)
I’d say “cool” is not caring what other people think, but a guy can let his dog poop on your lawn because he doesn’t care what you think, but that’s definitely not cool. I’d say it’s staying calm when others are losing their mind, but that also might be a sign you’re a psychopath.
So maybe cool is like obscenity; we know it when we see it.
And if that’s true, we probably also recognize uncool behavior when we see it and Joe Biden sniffing women’s hair?
Not cool, bro.
Thanks for the fun ride from Nerdland to Coolsville.
Well done!