On Saturday, the comic Jon Stewart and his friends will hold a rally to "restore sanity" in U.S. politics. The very phrase "restore sanity" smacks of action, of grabbing control, of shaking sense into the adolescent drama that has become American public life. In short, Mr. Stewart is playing the role of fed-up parent to the messed-up household.
It's exactly what Barack Obama has failed to do in the lead-up to next week's midterm elections. A sophisticated man with a cerebral bent and understated spirituality, Mr. Obama prefers being his brother's keeper to being his nation's father. But Americans want Dad. And if he doesn't show up, they'll take Mom.
However harshly mocked, both George W. Bush and Sarah Palin instinctively understand the parental hankerings of their people. Recall the post-9/11 moment. Rather than blithely assume that fearful Americans would listen to their president merely because he's the president, Mr. Bush turned to the comforts of home. To sell the Iraq war, he used a framing device that liberal philosopher George Lakoff calls the "strict father model" of parenting.
This approach, Mr. Lakoff explains, "begins with a set of assumptions: The world is a dangerous place and always will be because evil is out there. The world is also difficult because it is competitive. There is an absolute right and an absolute wrong. Children are born bad in the sense that they just want to do what feels good, not what is right. Therefore, they have to be made good."
Apply that parenting model to foreign policy. If you're a strict father, Mr. Lakoff wonders, how do you handle your children? You don't ask them what to do; you tell them. Hence Mr. Bush's notorious statement that the U.S. would never seek a permission slip to defend itself. In preparing for the Iraq war, he treated United Nations member states like schoolchildren who needed Washington's blessing to go to the bathroom - a far cry from Mr. Obama's emphasis on consultation.
Of course, diplomacy is part of the change Mr. Obama pledged. But that was before Americans knew just how desperate they'd feel. Today, an increasingly anxious public is shopping for one thing: the adult prepared to ground or kick out all who flout the family rules, from illegal immigrants to the Wall Street moguls that made multimillions as the economy tanked. Like teenagers complaining that "it's not fair," and calmly being told that the fat cats have got their comeuppance with a slap on their Rolex-riddled wrists, voters see the homestead being tyrannized by special interests. It's not clear who's in charge. But they know it's not Dad.
That's why more and more Americans are buying the promise of Mom - Sarah Palin and her Mama Grizzlies, conservative women determined to take back America and "defend her like a mother would a cub." They're assertive to the point of aggressive. Some make a show of their guns on the campaign trail.
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd recently wrote off the Mama Grizzlies as "mean girls - grown-up versions of those teenage tormentors who would steal your boyfriend, spray-paint your locker and, just for good measure, spread rumors that you were pregnant."
I, for one, think she's missed the meaning of their meanness. When these lacquered ladies tell their Democratic opponents to "man up" (a much-favoured marching order), they're actually telegraphing that "you don't have what it takes to be a real Dad. Make room for Mom." As such, the Mama Grizzlies still follow tradition, stepping into the breach only when a true patriarch can't be found.
Funny thing is, by their standards, Barack Obama has it in him to man up. Responding to criticisms of too few women in his inner circle and in his weekly basketball games, Mr. Obama sometimes boasts that he's surrounded by strong women "at home." Sexist? Voters don't seem to mind. Which may have been a saving grace for the President early on, but today he's lucky if any of his musings register as tough-guy talk.
In the American family portrait, Mr. Obama is Big Brother. By this time next year, he needs to become Big Daddy. For now, the Mama Grizzlies have his hide.