NRO's Smith: This Cowboy Is All Hat, No Cattle

Reading Tom Edsall's report on the NRO's W. Thomas Smith Jr., whose suspect writings are termed "insane" and "hilarious," two things stand out. First, it is said that he is the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Intelligent Design. Really, could such a guide have any other demographic, other than complete idiots?

But secondly, and more importantly, Smith's antics in the war zone, described as "cowboy" (which defames the disciplined and decent men who settled the American frontier) are the sorts of things that get other journalists killed. As one says, "By openly bragging about how he conducts 'reconnaissance' on Hezbollah 'strongholds' and describing what weapons he's carrying, he's making it difficult for every journalist here to do his or her job. We're all under suspicion anyway, and his public cowboying doesn't help at all."

Thomas' completely-missing-the-point response:

"Frankly, I'm not concerned with what Hezbollah assumes. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, funded, trained, and equipped by the Islamic (Iranian) Revolutionary Guard Corps. My responsibility is not to concern myself with how Hezbollah perceives me, nor do I feel any compulsion to court them. They are the enemy as far as I'm concerned. My responsibility is to deliver the facts to my readers, which I have always done and will always do.

"Now, am I a 'cowboy?' Perhaps I am bit of a cowboy. I did, after all, snag a Hezbollah flag while I was there. Was that Thomas [Smith] the journalist snagging the flag? Hardly. That was Thomas the Marine. And that's part of who I am, which I suppose makes me part cowboy."

Thomas the Marine, eh? Let's see. Unit. Corps. God. Country. You hear a "Me, me, me," in there, Thomas?

Comments

[realitytrumpsbull]

02:25 PM on 12/03/2007

Jesus is my buddy
Jesus is my pal
If'n ya don't believe in Jesus
Then you can go to HAL

(HAL, the big supercomputer, get it? Get it?
wink, wink, nudge nudge)

[MajorKong]

11:29 AM on 12/03/2007

He sounds more like Yosemite Sam than Gary Cooper.

[normathumb]

11:25 AM on 12/03/2007

After reading a bit of 19'th century American western history, "decent" isn't the adjective that comes to mind when I think of cowboys. If they weren't avoiding civilization and its legal trappings, most were certainly looking to skirt on its fringes. Cowboys, trappers, and river roustabouts were neither disciplined nor decent by any modern understanding of the terms. Transient, drunken, brawling, illiterate and brutish are probably more apt adjectives fitting most cowboys of the era. Certainly there are exceptions but Teddy Roosevelt was far from the norm in the old west. Thomas probably embraces the Hollywood John Wayne Rooster Cogburn cowboy image, most likely a caae of arrested development. No doubt, when he grows up his vanity is to be Ernest Hemingway

[duggie]

11:20 AM on 12/03/2007

Whoa Hoss! No cowboy worth his woolies was ever a Marine - those ol' boys wuz Confederate renegades and northern draft dodgers, and woulda strung up any pencil-twirler they got a rope around. Yee-Haw!

[wired]

09:20 AM on 12/03/2007

Oh. Comments are back.

[wired]

09:17 AM on 12/03/2007

Strange. Huffpo has deleted all comments made on the main story blog.

[Counterglow]

07:10 PM on 12/02/2007

Why do I get the feeling that this idiot and those like him are responsible for a lot of friendly fire incidents? His blatant lack of self-discipline can't help but equate to failure of fire control discipline.