Jesse Ventura’s Junk
Volokh Conspirator Stewart Baker wonders whether Jesse Ventura's complaints about TSA groping making him a "wussy."
Volokh Conspirator Stewart Baker wonders whether Jesse Ventura’s complaints about TSA groping making him a “wussy,” especially in light of his own post-9/11 statement that “I don’t think you can be too careful and people are just going to have to accept a little bit of inconvenience.” Without evidence, Baker snarks, “Maybe his real beef is that he used to get paid big money to be touched like that on TV, and now he’s just treated like everybody else.”
I’d suggest that:
- Law professors should be extremely circumspect in questioning the masculinity of former Navy frogmen who came to national prominence as professional wrestlers and action movie stars
- One imagines Ventura expected the inconvenience to be related to stopping terrorists
- There are a lot of things people willingly do for money that they shouldn’t expect to have to do as a condition of traveling freely
Tangentially related gripes:
- Google’s current search algorithm, which prioritizes new content, makes it next to impossible to find the context of quotations from 2001. The top several hundred results are repeats of the same story.
- In light of Sunday’s idiotic commentary on Chicago Bears QB Jay Cutler, who played on a torn MCL and then had his manhood questioned for being unable to continue, perhaps we should generally take a new tone on the issue.
Frogman? Seriously, James, frogman? I would have expected “diver” or “SEAL” (granted, SEALs didn’t exist yet) or “UDT,” but frogman?
He wasn’t technically a SEAL, as you say. I always thought of “frogman” as “badass Navy diver dude” but maybe there’s a negative connotation in squid circles.
It’s just such an antiquated term. My Navy career briefly overlapped his, and I don’t think I ever heard UDTs referred to as “frogmen,” but I could have been living a protected life.
Maybe it’s just that the term brings to my mind one of the most unimpressive comic book heroes, Aquaman. Now that dude was lame.
Funny thing, my uncle Alex WAS a “frogman” in WWII. Even got wrote up in a teenage book called “Frogmen of WWII” for some truly heroic stuff he did at Tarawa. Jesse V (I am sure he did some bad ass stuff) wasn’t a pimple on my Uncle Alex’s ass.
Think about it… Tarawa.
My Uncle Alex would laugh about this stuff (hell, he laughed about everything else…)
Commenting on people’s masculinity is stupid regardless. I don’t care whether Ventura is a big strong manly-man or not. I care whether he’s right. Perhaps let’s discuss that instead.
And regarding Cutler, I didn’t think he was a wuss. I just thought he was stinking up the joint. If it turns out he was stinking because of his leg, then at least he has an excuse for his awfulness. Anyway, I was happy to see him leave the game. At the time I assumed the knee thing was a cover story to save face for pulling a QB who was blowing it.