"[Bush] was a coherent masculinity at ease with [himself], whereas Kerry represented an incredible disavowal of the magnificent performance of sovereignty and freedom from the need to be respected that he manifested at the end of the Vietnam War. As a candidate he had to pretend that he had just been a good soldier all along, but that wasn't the point. The reason that he was worthy of respect wasn't that he was a good soldier,; it was that he used the knowledge that he gained in Vietnam actually to break with the system.

He was what Foucault might call a specific intellectual.

Exactly. And when the system tells you it doesn't respect you, you owe nothing to it and can make yourself free. ... an important lesson about possible responses to the broken circuit other than trying to reason with it, convince it, be a good teacher of it, re-seduce it, or be pragmatic in a depressive collaboration...."

from The Broken Circuit: An Interview with Lauren Berlant
Cabinet Issue 31 SHAME