The term "cowboy diplomacy" is an insult to cowboys around the world

[derby378]

The average cowboy, vaquero, gaucho, or whatever label he or she takes is a hard-working individual with strong work ethics and not much need for consumer vanities.

This isn't cowboy diplomacy we've been witnessing. This is the rise of neo-fascism, the rise of the Imperial Presidency.

I wish Hillary and other would stop using this "cowboy diplomacy" label. It's a frame that serves to insult more people than it rallies.

[jpgray]

1. Time to contact NAARP

(National Association for the Advancement of Ranching Peoples)

But in seriousness, I get what you mean. The phrase as a whole has an understood meaning that is not necessarily reducible to its parts.

[derby378]

3. You still earn a ROFL...

That was pretty cute.

:rofl: :hi:

[kysrsoze]

2. "Redneck diplomacy" seems much more appropriate.

[Toots]

4. Are you saying "Don't mess with Texas"?

Cowboys have a reputation, I wonder why??

[derby378]

8. Well...

Considering how many delegates we send to the Electoral College every four years, that might not be such bad advice...

:rofl:

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

5. I agree wholeheartedly. Bush is AFRAID of horses. He does not deserve the moniker.

MKJ

[madokie]

6. sure it is

early on I would refer to the dunderheaded shitpoop as a cowboy in some way or fashion but real quickly I realized what I was doing and quit doing it. I'm not a cowboy but I have lots of cowboy and cowgirl friends that I put way above the before mentioned igit. Speaking of being a cowboy let me tell you a little story. a friend and I met these two girls at a party one night and they invited us to go horseback riding with them the next day for a picnic lunch and the whole shebang so I was all gungho as I thought that even though I haven't ridden a horse just how hard could it be to learn, so off we go and that had to be the longest day of my life. when the horse's back came up I was going down and I never did get the hang of it, once in a while the horse, I suspect he knew I didn't know jackshit about riding would change his stride and we would be as one but only for a fleeting moment was this true mind you though. I didn't make it very far with either of these young ladies and I suspect it was among other issues because they were having to stiffle a laugh the whole day. We're still friends though and we get a good laugh out of my cowboy ways often

[spanone]

7. it is also an insult to diplomats

[L. Coyote]

9. Cattlemen and cattlewomen do not use the term "cowboy" as a self-reference.

Having grown up working on a real cattle operation, I think I can safely say that much.

Cowboy diplomacy is more a reference to a film genre than to a working occupation.

Perhaps you would prefer the more obtuse "Italian Western Diplomacy"

If anything, it is an insult to a genre of poets! :rofl:

[krispos42]

10. Bush is all hat, no cattle

And with no cattle, there's no cowboy

All Hat, No Cattle
We warned you! Look back at our 1999, pre-primary assessment of George W. Bush
PAUL ALEXANDER
Posted Aug 05, 1999 12:00 AM


George W. Bush was head cheerleader in prep school, a hard-partying frat rat and mediocre student at Yale. After skirting the draft in 1968, he failed at business three times, got bailed out by powerful friends, made a fortune at taxpayer expense and became the popular but weak governor of Texas, an evangelical Christian who preaches morality but ducks questions about his own past. And now he might be president?

As of early July, all indicators seemed to confirm that Texas Gov. George Walker Bush had wrapped up the Republican presidential nomination -- a full eight months before votes will be cast in the first primary, in New Hampshire. After months of buildup, the oldest son of former president George Bush left his home in Austin -- in a campaign plane he'd named Great Expectations -- and set out to take his message of compassionate conservatism to America.

<snip>

But questions linger about Bush. Is it enough that the only political post he's held is governor of Texas -- a state whose constitution renders its governor a virtual figurehead with no real power? Will he be hurt by the wishy-washy stands he's taken on abortion, hate-crime legislation and Kosovo? Will he be sunk by persistent rumors of illegal drug use and carousing in his past? When one examines the fullness of his life -- and for this article, Rolling Stone interviewed some 100 people who know Bush -- a more disturbing problem emerges. What Bush is saying now, with its overtones of evangelical Christianity and a moral one-upmanship, has almost nothing to do with the way he has actually lived most of his life. Is Bush being hypocritical? Or is he, as his supporters claim, a man who has recognized the error of his ways -- the one politician who can point the country in the right moral direction?

<snip>

In 1984, Uzielli tried to keep Bush Exploration solvent by buying another 400 shares of stock, this time for $150,000 (it's hard to understand the logic of how the sales price was established.) Bush Exploration needed to merge with a profitable company, so Bush found Spectrum 7, a Cincinnati-based oil company owned by William DeWitt Jr. and Mercer Reynolds III, two GOP contributors who, in 1988, would be major donors to his father's presidential campaign. DeWitt and Reynolds named Bush CEO of Spectrum 7 Exploration, a subsidiary of Spectrum 7, with a $75,000 salary. At Bush's urging, Spectrum sank $1 million into stripper wells in Texas in 1985, just when oil prices started to drop. Indeed, Spectrum's financial performance proved to be as dismal as that of Bush's previous two companies. Finally, in January 1986, the world oil market collapsed. In a six-month period, Spectrum lost $400,000. The company's plight had become so bad that Bush and his partners were considering bankruptcy. "I never saw him depressed over the failures," says a Bush confidant. "What he became was angry."

<lots, lots more>

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/6482734/all_hat_no_cattle