Is Cowboyin' dead?

If you’re a lover, a rider, and a wild bull fighter—can you wear an Obama mask?  Remember the guy in the Missouri state fair rodeo 2010 who did that?  He got suspended and nearly lost his occupation and had to beg and plead with all the politicians and the sponsors who want all the benefits of sponsorship without any of the controversy.  It made me sick. 

Indeed the guy who was the rodeo clown didn’t even do much of a lampoon by just wearing a mask.   A better lampoon would have been to carry a golf club as well. There is a longstanding cowboy tradition of making fun of everybody including yourself. If someone is such a egotist that they can dish it out but they can’t take it, that’s more than just a character flaw.  Indeed we all have character flaws.  It’s more like a moral flaw.  Among country folk who fight weather, diseases in the herd and markets, humility is an imperative of spiritual health.  No humility-- people question whether you have any faith in God. Cowboys and farmers laugh at everybody.  At least that’s how it used to be a century ago when 40% of the people lived off the land.  Now it’s 1%.

The objectors on the left said it was racism, which is what they label everything this side of not being able to find a parking space. The rodeo clown had no thought of racism.  In fact, as a rodeo attendee, I have seen my share of Nixon masks and Reagan masks and had a good hoot over the shenanigans.  And there are clowns with African heritage.  Did anybody call them racist?  I think not.

When Obama came on the scene, I read Ed Klein’s The Amateur which details how Obama is a narcissist.  He painstakingly proved the point.  Obama won’t invite union leaders back to the White House if they object to anything he wants.  He stops listening and calling on cabinet members who voice warnings.  He requires yes men in all bureaucracies. He thinks he is the smartest person in the room no matter which room he is in.  A narcissist thinks the sun rises and sets on himself. This is a prescription for fiddling while Rome burns. But the media portrayed his early days as being victory after victory for the liberal cause.  Obamacare and Stimulus were rammed down throats gleefully because they had power to do it.  But I wondered if Obama weren’t in fact, a hardcore ideologue, unwilling to bend.  I got in a discussion of the economy with my financial planner and he noted that stagnant economies like Japan cannot fight recessions with cheap interest.  Spending does little but is the only tool.  Suddenly a light bulb went on in my head and I asked what do you invest in when that happens, because Obama will stimulate forever.  Own Wall Street all the way, he told me.  That’s what I did and made a killing in the midst of a terrible recovery.   

So here we are at the nadir of another summer rodeo season, another presidential season. The bull riders are all wearing elbow braces and have wrapped wrists.   Is it okay to have a clown with an Obama mask now that he has served two terms, or is the Left still insecure and can’t laugh?  OR, should we just declare the demise of the American Cowboy?