Dropping a note to the Note

I love ABC’s The Note. I love how they cut through the spin and look askance at whatever comes out of the Beltway. But they annoyed me this morning with this:

And by that, we mean that when there’s a negative story like Ms. Bumiller’s in the New York Times , which kicked off all of this, the White House pushes back hard, even when they don’t necessarily have all the facts.

It also suggests that they are fearful of encouraging the image, a la the James Byrd incident, that Bush wasn’t an activist, caring governor in Texas.

And, it shows that they don’t want Bush, arguably the nation’s first cowboy president, to ever appear to be un-macho, and not supporting the space program is un-macho. [my emphasis…]

Granted they used the modifier “arguably”, but, come on? “Cowboy president”?

I sent them this:

Can we all just agree that maybe we shouldn’t be using the term “first cowboy President” to describe George W Bush? As has been pointed out before, Bush does not ride horses, doesn’t even have a horse, and shows no inclination to ride horses. Add to that the fact that the “cows” on his property in Crawford aren’t even his (they belong to a neighbor) makes the appellation of “cowboy” a point somewhere between myth and big old public relations scam.

The fact is that Bush drives around his boutique “ranch” (providently built while he was running for President) in a truck. I believe this would make him the “Dude Ranch President” which doesn’t have quite the Rove-ian touch now, does it?

Thanks pardner….

Tbogg