National Review Online

The Cowboy Way

 In search of a preemption metaphor.

ne of my favorite cartoons in the wake of the 9/11 attack was a picture of a giant Uncle Sam standing against the New York skyline, brushing himself off and rolling up his sleeves. He’d clearly been knocked down by a cheap shot and he was mighty angry about it. If memory serves, he said, over his shoulder and through gnashed teeth, “You shouldn’t have done that.” The meaning was obvious. America was going to the pantry and clearing the shelves of every case of whup-ass in our larder (24 cans per case).

People forget now, but it took awhile to get the cases from the top shelf. We didn’t begin bombing Afghanistan forward into the stone age for about six weeks. And yet, critics of the president were already calling him a cowboy, as if cowboys usually take 45 days to return a punch.

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