Gene Lyons:

Still on the defensive about Bush’s own maritime adventure, last year’s illadvised “Mission Accomplished” aircraft carrier stunt, the president’s handlers were clearly thrown off balance by John Kerry’s landing in Boston Harbor with his Vietnam crewmen, a poignant bit of stagecraft. Unlike Bush, the Democratic candidate had enough sense not to appear in uniform, turning a patriotic photo op into bathos. Real Men, see, don’t play dress-up.

So strong was the imagery coming out of the Democratic convention that even Kerry’s photo in a NASA “clean suit,” looking like a spermatozoon out of Woody Allen’s “Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask,” failed to generate laughter. (Note to Kerry: No costumes, uniforms or specialized garb between now and November, even a Red Sox cap. Especially no cowboy hats. Let Bush play Marlboro Man.)

Republicans countered with as vicious a smear against Kerry as we’ve seen since—well, since the last time George W. Bush ran against somebody with a higher Testosterone Quotient: the 2000 South Carolina primary, when little gremlins hinted to suggestible Moron Americans that John McCain’s years as a Vietnam POW had left him psychologically unfit, and, oh, did you know he had a black child? (An adopted daughter from Bangladesh.) As “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart put it, maybe they had him confused with Strom Thurmond.

Thanks in part to McCain’s lingering anger, the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth succeeded mainly in reminding voters of the 2000 smear. A Real Man, particularly one who’d taken a playboy’s leave from his own National Guard duties back in the day, would renounce such tactics. Not Bush.

But let’s get back to the silly stuff, shall we? The question of which candidate is more masculine exists purely in the realm of TV imagery, a leftover of Newt Gingrich’s campaign to portray Democrats as “the enemies of normal Americans.” It’s the kind of cartoon thinking we all fall into part of the time—and stupid people pretty much all the time. Quick now, which state’s natives are more virile, Texas or Massachusetts?

Oh, really? Did you know that NFL Hall-of-Famer turned Radio Shack pitchman Howie Long, dubbed “the manliest man on earth” on his fan club Web site, grew up around Boston? So did Oakland Raiders teammate Lyle Alzado. Broadway choreographer Tommy Tune, meanwhile, hails from Texas. So does actor Patrick Swayze, who began his career as a ballet dancer.

OK, OK. Look, for all I know, Swayze’s hobby may be bull-riding and Tune was welterweight champ of the U.S. Marines. That’s roughly my point. “Quien es mas macho,” Red state vs. Blue state? It’s all nonsense.

It’s one thing for the Sporting News to run a jokey article about how Bush would be the choice to bust “a fastball at Osama bin Laden’s ear.” (Never mind that Kerry played varsity ice hockey and soccer while Bush was a cheerleader; his opening pitch at Fenway Park did bounce.) Yet even The New York Times recently asked which presidential hopeful had the more manly bicycle.

Bush. That $3,000 mountain bike he keeps falling off, see, manifests “a certain daredevil quality,” while Kerry’s $8,000 street model bespeaks caution.

Never mind that in Texas iconography, a rancher on a bicycle may as well wear pantyhose and high heels. Real Men ride horses, a virile pastime I’m proud to share with a couple of million 12-year-old girls.