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Why 'Cowboy' Shouldn't Be Political Insult

Label for 'reckless' President maligns real cowpokes

By Laurel Jorgensen,  Newser Staff

Posted Jun 23, 2008 2:22 PM CDT
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(Newser) – The word “cowboy” doesn’t deserve the derogatory treatment it’s received in recent years, Elmer Kelton writes in Texas Monthly. With critics labeling President Bush’s foreign policy “cowboy diplomacy,” the term that was once a sign of respect is now used to evoke a "shoot-from-the hip" individual who makes reckless decisions—the opposite of working cowboys like Kelton’s father, he writes.

Kelton says most cowboys he has known “would go out of their way to avoid a confrontation” and rarely used their guns. “Pundits and politicians who recklessly malign" real cowboys "show their ignorance of the reality,” he writes. “Cowboy capitalism? The average cowboy won’t save up a fraction as much money in his lifetime as the average Washington lawmaker wastes on self-serving earmarks.”

Cowboys from the Burnt Well Guest Ranch drive a herd of longhorn cattle toward the Eastern New Mexico State Fair Grounds in Roswell, New Mexico, eastward along Brasher Road Friday, June 6, 2008.
Cowboys from the Burnt Well Guest Ranch drive a herd of longhorn cattle toward the Eastern New Mexico State Fair Grounds in Roswell, New Mexico, eastward along Brasher Road Friday, June 6, 2008.   (AP Photo/Roswell Daily Record )
President Bush poses with Navy football team players after they presented him with a cowboy hat earlier this year in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington.
President Bush poses with Navy football team players after they presented him with a cowboy hat earlier this year in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington.   (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
President Bush tries on a cowboy hat given to him by members of the U.S. Naval Academy football team, Monday, April 14, 2008 in the Rose Garden of the White House.
President Bush tries on a cowboy hat given to him by members of the U.S. Naval Academy football team, Monday, April 14, 2008 in the Rose Garden of the White House.   (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
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