THE CONCERN ABOUT "STRENGTH"

Movement conservatives seem to be obsessed with having the U.S. President be perceived as a strong person and that usually means they want the President to be a hawk all the time. Last week on gthe Phil Hendrie Show, Frank Gaffney was upset about Pres. Obama's Cairo speech because he felt that Muslims perceived Obama as "submissive." Dick Morris thinks that "the president is letting the perception of weakness cloud his image" and Anne Bayefsky writes in Forbes that "this is a man who embodies the opposite of the courage to act."

My intuition is that this argument appeals to people who need an external source of self-esteem.