Dear America,

"Meanwhile along comes Barack Obama.

No military experience. 

Never even pretended to be a duck hunter. 

And yet he shows the kind of quiet strength 

that doesn't need to prove itself, 

except in the act of doing what needs to be done. 

No gloating or boasting 

(think of that silent visit to Ground Zero).

Just taking responsibility, 

while giving the credit to those who risked the most.

In other words, the cowboy way. 

Funny how truly modern that turned out to be."

Spencer Critchley

a Business Insider guy

and good morning vietnam!
(say it like robin williams in one of his best roles ever)

 and just what kind of alternative reality have we slipped into?

Of course, we're not in kansas  vietnam any longer, now are we Trigger?

So scratch vietnam and take out williams; substitute afghanistan and bring in obama -- and we come to a mountainous backdrop, dry terrain, miles from home, only about 40 years later; and, by my rough count, about a dirty dozen altercations in between...if we were to round up world skirmishes and American kinetic military action  into a number we can use as a jumping point.

Think about it -- beginning sometime after Vietnam, and perhaps trying not to remember the Tehran hostage rescue that didn't exactly go down as planned.... after Grenada...after Beirut, Persian Gulf, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and adding limited military occupations in Haiti (even before the earthquake), the Philippines, in Panama, and whatever we want to call L'bya, we are entrenched, or have been entrenched, or intend to be entrenched, wherever freedom calls.  Because America is good like that. 

But only someone like the Chosen One could have the uber-liberals let him get away with this sort of thing as if he were better than Churchill, Eisenhower, and John Wayne combined; even when he is clearly gloating, 'spiking the football' (for two weeks now, mind you) the people not only understand him....they cut him extra slack.

The people get him. And, as lady luck should have it, seem to find an excuse and a rationale for everything he does...because he is just that kind of cool, calm, collected; and if I may be so bold, add understated, a man of few words (haha), just a long hard stare across the bar seems to do the trick; for, you know, he is, after all, a cowboy.

Love to get an update from a HuffPo guy, Robert Naiman.  Way back in 2010, he was questioning the media's sudden anti-war one eighty, wondering where oh where have all the real press men gone.   After falling totally and unabashedly and shamelessly under Obama's spell, as if flashing a garter and a smile is enough to put a kabosh on whatever honor and integrity they got left; it doesn't matter.

as if nothing matters no more no more.

yeah, yeah, why don't you come up and see me sometime...I believe you can be had...
(just a little Mae West thrown in for kicks and giggles).

Naiman ran the numbers:  under Bush, the number of US casualties in  Afghanistan during his entire eight years of office came to 575 (my count, 630); while at the time of Naiman's post, in August 2010, the count came to nearly the exact same total under Roy -Obama-Rogers.   And suga', to put it mildly, to put things in perspective, apples to apples, that is doubling the same number of casualties before even reaching a half way point of his first term . Cowboy, indeed.

Today, according to the iCasualties website, that number jumps to 941 -- and what is today?  May 11, 2011 -- just TWO years and THREE months and Twenty One days into office!  Adding the combined NATO forces, we find that under the Bush Administration, a total of 1049 troops were lost over the course of EIGHT years; and to date, under Cowboy Joe-Bama, we have lost 1400 real, live soldiers in real time over the course of only two years --
the infantry...our gunslinger's... our wrangler's, gaucho's and countrymen -- our sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, mothers and fathers...these people are real live soldiers...cowboys of the highest order.

So let the record show, Obama deserves praise for the gunfight that led to the bullet in the eye of perhaps one of the greatest villains of our time -- and on top of that, he has led the world in a war that has seen the greatest loss of life under his watch, as opposed to his predecessor.  yippie kie yo and a bottle of whiskey.  happy days are here again.  can you hear me now?

And our unbiased media, where are they?
Just where is the soldier watch?
Just where is the media counting coffins?
Oh, that's right.  The media was asked to leave months ago; no longer can even friendly fire, a biased media front line, get a front row picture spot for the record.  yes indeed, we got ourselves a new sheriff in town and he ain't taken no guff.  oh, never you mind...

And what's rosie o'donnell whining about -- where's bin Laden's rights for a fair trial??????  really?  Hey rosie, where is the continuing outrage over the loss of troops -- you know, someone's son, daughter, wife, husband, father, mother?   And you ask, where was bin BadMan's due process?  c'mon. seriously?  And just where are the rest of you, speaking to our left wing journalists and pajama-pundits -- just where is the raising cain you served up liberally along with the chuck wagons every night?

In truth, I set out this morning prepared to blaze a trail all over the remarks made by the Cowboy-in-Chief while in Texas just yesterday;  I was ready to come out with both guns firing with a line of ammo crisscrossing my chest like a grechita bandito and pick apart nearly every word from the moment he said, "it doesn't matter where you come from" to "regardless of how they came" to "they'll [GOP] never be satisfied...bigger fence..build a moat...put alligators in the moat...they'll never be satisfied."

...this... immediately following another call for civility.   He might has well have been buried under the floor of a saloon, as evidently, he couldn't even hear himself speak.  There is was -- begging for the issue not be made into a political fodder, imploring restraint when it comes to making rhetorical, ideological colorful sideshows -- and then he turned around acting as if the carnival was in town...poking fun at the fat lady with an elephant for a head.  but more on the coming insurrection beginning with immigration later -- probably showing up sometime before sundown, tomorrow.

I plum there got myself ambushed before the sun done der come up with Critchley's cowboy connection.  RR has to be rolling in hysterics by now, somewhere up there... in the wild blue yonder.   And before you think I am stuck on roy rogers please scratch roy, substitute ron, as in the great ronnie reagan.  One day in office and that cowboy had America's villains hiding in dem-dare-hills, coughing up hostages, and running scared. Without even pulling the trigger, that's how real cowboys do it.

Make it a Good Day, G

but really, who's watching who?  what is the press good for?  unbiased journalism?  where? Don't answer.  rhetorical questions from a cowgirl, indeed.  The trail of hypocrisy runs wide and wild:  A Bush war with troops being killed, bad  --  but Obama gets a pass -- what? is that under some newfangled "the good war" methodology?  Bush high gas prices, bad -- under Obama, what price gouging?   Bush keeping Gitmo open, bad -- Obama, what Gitmo?  Bush immigration reform without democrat support, bad -- Obama, even with carrying the majority in both houses  for two whole years and perfectly able to get it done at ANY time,  didn't get it done...Response:  some version of no comprende.  fascinating.