Maureen Dowd smells the testosterone and finds it unsatisfying. Ouch!

This will be known as the year macho politics failed — mainly because it was macho politics by marshmallow men. Voters were sick of phony swaggering, blustering and bellicosity, absent competency and accountability. They were ready to trade in the deadbeat Daddy party for the sheltering Mommy party.

All the conservative sneering about a fem-lib from San Francisco who was measuring the drapes for the speaker’s office didn’t work. Americans wanted new drapes, and an Armani granny with a whip in charge.

After 9/11, Americans had responded to bellicosity, drawn to the image, as old as the Western frontier myth, of the strong father protecting the home from invaders. But this time, many voters, especially women, rejected the rough Rovian scare and divide tactics.

The macho poses and tough talk of the cowboy president were undercut when he seemed flaccid in the face of the vicious Katrina and the vicious Iraq insurgency.

Even former members of the administration conceded they were tired of the muscle-bound style, longing for a more maternal approach to the globe. “We were exporting our anger and our fear, hatred for what had happened,” Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, said in a speech in Australia, referring to the 9/11 attacks. He said America needed “to turn another face to the world and get back to more traditional things, such as the export of hope and opportunity and inspiration.”

You know as a member of this particular gender I have to say that I have been underwhelmed by our performance on the world stage as of late. We talk tough but just cannot deliver the goods.

Most women know that the guy who brags about his sexual prowess is usually a dud in the sack. And guys usually find out that the bully who is shooting off his mouth in a bar will probably end up in the fetal position in the parking lot later. Tough talk does not translate into being tough.

In Alaska we have recently elected our very first female Governor, Sarah Palin. She was not my choice for Governor, as she is a Republican, but I am more then willing to give her the opportunity to show us how she might approach some of our more confounding problems. We have a gas pipeline project that has been stuck in the talking stage for decades. We have subsistence issues to work out. We have many problems that may benefit from having somebody more interested in negotiating a deal then puffing out their chests.

Having Nancy Pelosi as the first female speaker of the House presents the same opportunity to see how a woman's sensibilities might change the job to be more facilitating rather then bullying.

I am not a supporter of Hillary being our next president but if this is going to be the century of the woman then perhaps it is written in the stars and we all just need to accept it. I certainly do believe that America would benefit from having a woman in charge of our great country.

I mean I was raised in a single parent home, and my Mom did a fine job with me.

Okay that might be a bad example, but I still support women geting more control over the direction of this country. And in her defense Mom did not have much to work with. I love you Mom, and as usual, sorry.