These are hard times for the bignews magazines. They all have Web sites that attempt to keep up with the news hour-by-hour, as their consumers increasingly do. But they still think they can maintain influence, or at least relevance in the daily arena of ideas with a publish-once-a-week mindset.
Time magazine ran a piece called “The End of Cowboy Diplomacy” as the cover story of its July 17 issue.
It was a cute attempt to create a news cycle that would make President Bush even more unpopular, complete with itty bitty cowboy boots poking out from under a huge cowboy hat with a presidential seal.
The piece quotes unnamed presidential advisers that say Condoleezza Rice?s State Department is making progress against the Cheney-Rumsfeld neoconservative faction and moving Bush toward more reliance on multilateralism. It also says that the tough going in Iraq has invalidated Bush?s foreign policy approach and made him unable to lead at home and abroad.
The Time writers hammer away at the clueless cowboy theme, stopping just short of quoting former Texas governor and Bush political opponent Ann Richards to the effect that Bush is “all hat, no cattle.”
The mainstream media often dust off the Wild West metaphors when talking about Bush, and it?s not just because he actually is a Texan who wears cowboy boots. In our modern, post-feminist age, the cowboy moniker is a quick way to suggest that someone clings to outmoded, dangerous notions of manly individualism that are quite unnecessary, even silly.
But there?s a reason why the Western is the quintessential American cinematic genre. And it?s probably a good thing for a real-life president to have some of the virtues of a big-screen Western hero.
Take Gary Cooper?s portrayal of Sheriff Will Kane in the 1952 classic “High Noon.” It?s Kane?s last day before retirement, but a brutal gang he put away has been paroled and is coming back to town for revenge. Everyone tells Kane to avoid the confrontation, but he won?t.
Kane knows he can?t shirk his duty and that running from the outlaws won?t make him or the town safe tomorrow. No one in town will help him, but Kane makes the hard, right choice to stay and fight today.
The parallel is inexact, but Bush handled Iraq in much the same way. After a decade of empty warnings from the Clinton administration and the United Nations, Bush exhausted every reasonable diplomatic option and gave Saddam Hussein every chance to avoid war.
Of course, the fate of Iraq is yet to be decided, and the progress is sometimes dishearteningly slow, even ? no, especially ? for committed believers in the Bush Doctrine. But the creative destabilization resulting from American resolve in Iraq means that the war between Israel and Hezbollah may actually end up making the Middle East more secure.
With Saddam Hussein out of the way, Iran is seeking to assert itself as the shot-caller in the region.
Unleashing Hezbollah on Israel is Iran?s attempt to do that and to bolster its prestige in the Islamic world. Plus, they just plain hate Jews.
The Iranian ploy may have backfired. The Arab League has criticized Hezbollah for sparking hostilities with Israel. That marks the first time the Arab League has even come close to taking Israel?s side in a conflict with an Arab entity.
Apparently, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt can lay aside their hatred for the Jewish state long enough to thwart Iran?s interests in their own backyards. They also know the Bush administration wants to contain Iran, and that Bush has the will to do whatever is required, diplomatically or otherwise.
Just like in the movies, when the hero stands up to the villain, everyone else gets the gumption to cowboy up. So it looks like Hezbollah might just be left alone in its long-threatened showdown with Israel. Any doubt on who will be left standing?
Aaron Keith Harris writes about politics, the media, pop culture and music and is a regular contributor to National Review Online and Bluegrass Unlimited. He can be reached at [email protected].
