Arthur Alpert Pic2Dick Cheney’s complaint that President Obama is “dithering” on Afghanistan calls into question what I do here most weeks – political commentary. For the political prism is too narrow, thin and, yes, too superficial a tool for understanding the former Vice-President.

Sadly, only a genius or deity could grasp the psychological, social and religious roots that lie beneath Cheney’s criticism, as they do everybody’s pronouncements. I can only identify a few threads in his tapestry – as seen through a glass, darkly.

“Certainty” is the brightest color, of course; Cheney reaches it by ironing out the very complexities Mr. Obama would untangle. And he has a point – humans need a degree of certainty to go on. As John Stuart Mill put it, “There is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life.”

But certainty – if based on belief rather than evidence – may be a tender trap. My certitude doesn’t make an iffy proposition true.

Squinting, I discern that Mr. Cheney feels some guilt, too, for failing to protect us from the 9/11 terrorists. Or, maybe I’m detecting the poor guy’s repression.

You don’t need 20-20 vision, however, to see the traditional male role at work. Cheney, remember, chose not to serve in the military and later promoted an unprovoked attack on Iraq to reconfigure the Middle East. So when he urges Mr. Obama to abandon analysis for action – it’s manlier to do than think – the former VP may just be thumping his hairy chest.

If so, I sympathize. It’s easy for a guy to reject force and brutality intellectually, but – confession! – I thrilled to its artistic expression in the movie “The 300”. And I love watching smash-mouth football.

Still, if human survival matters, thinking and feeling should prevail over violence. Yet saying that is risky; in these thuggish times, to cogitate is to invite charges of weakness. And feeling is stigmatized as feminine. How strange to so disrespect strength!

Here’s a gender role aside. In a short, autobiographical play I’m struggling to write, I’ve a scene at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri wherein a few professional soldiers teach us recruits how to be manly – drinking, fighting, whoring, cursing and denigrating homosexuals, mostly. It happened. And it was educational.

A recent Frontline documentary (“The Warning”, KNME-TV, October 20) showed gender shaping politics when Brooksley Born tried to protect Americans from hidden, unregulated trading of derivatives in the Clinton years. She was chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, but powerful Democrats (Rubin, Summers) and Republicans (Greenspan, Armey) knew better, they ridiculed her and, oh yes, they were all men.

Born went away. The derivatives didn’t.

Most of your email and comments on my pieces are intelligent and informed, but some suggest that politics exists objectively, like a pure metal, unalloyed. As one reader (Phoebe) wrote in a recent post, this can result in “the collective loss of an ability to question or doubt our own assertions…”

To state the obvious, politics reflects who we are. We share a common humanity, true, but that includes fundamental fears. They lead to different strategies and tactics for getting through this vale of tears. Which explains our political differences.

For example, my politics generally reflects the premise that we – key word, we – are all in this together. Many who disagree begin with “I,” because they presume an every-man-for -himself struggle to survive and prosper.

Since we all erect political scaffolding on that kind of foundation, we should regularly revisit the underpinnings.

I’ll get right to it – no dithering.