That Idiot Cowboy, GW Bush

Lest ye think I'm a hater of all things cowboy, know this: my favorite author is Elmer Kelton. For the unitiated, he's a writer who specializes in the psychological drama of his characters. But since most of his characters exist in the cowboy era, his books are called westerns, and he's the most-awarded western writer of all times.

I come from West Texas and have ridden roundup, de-wormed, castrated, sheared and been knocked down by rams. I've driven miles of big-ranch fenceline, shot a buck from one canyonside to another, then gutted him in the 20-degree weather. By no stretch am I a cowboy, but I've known and respected a goodly number of them.

And then there's the variety of cowboy we have as president. You may have heard the phrase "goin' off half-cocked" to describe those who act before properly thinking, or, in the following case, speaking without knowing what they're talking about.

Yesterday's press conference in the Rose Garden: Bush calls on reporter Peter Wallsteen, but then jokes that he doesn't like being asked a question with shades on. It was a joke, but it was clear Bush was using his presidential gravitas to suggest the sunglasses go away. Well, Wallsteen wasn't wearing them to look cool. He has Stargardt's disease, a form of macular degeneration that causes progressive vision loss. He's legally blind.

This is yet another example of a President who stays remarkably uninformed, stumbling into situations like a rube cowboy (unlike the honorable men Kelton so wonderfully describes in his novels). I wouldn't mind if he kept this kind of decision-making confined to Rose Garden photo-ops. It's when he starts wars, pushes social security plans, approves environment-harming legislation...more based on gut than hard evidence...that it rubs me the wrong way.