It used to really bother me when Muslim detractors in the Middle East, the socialist detractors in Europe, or the radical liberals in Hollywood called our President a cowboy.

But the more I think about it, that sounds just right to me....

When I was a kid, cowboys were my heroes.

The ones in the white hats, not the black hats. The black hats were usually the bad guys.

There was Tex Ritter, Tom Mix, Buck Jones,

Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger...

Red Ryder, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers...

Hoss, Ben and Li'l Joe Cartwright...

Matt Dillon, Paladin, Maverick and others....

Rawhide's Rowdy Yates

What were common attributes of these legendary cowboys?

Here are a few:

1. They were never looking for trouble.

2. But when trouble came, they faced it with courage.

3. They were always on the side of right.

4. They defended good people against the bad guys.

5. They had high morals and good manners.

6. They were honest.

7. They spoke their minds and they spoke the truth, regardless of what people thought. No one ever heard of "political correctness" back then.

8. They were a beacon of integrity in the scruffy wild West.

9. They were respected. When the good cowboys walked into a saloon (where they usually drank sarsaparilla), the place became quiet, and the bad guys kept their distance.

10. In a gunfight, they could outdraw anyone. In a fist fight, they could beat up anyone.

11. They always won. They always got their man. In victory, they rode off into the sunset.

Those were the days when there was such a thing as right and wrong, so blurred in our modern world today, and denied by many.

Now, I still like cowboys.

They represent something good — something pure that America has been missing.

Ronald Reagan was a cowboy.

I like Ronald Reagan, who was brave, positive, and who gave us hope. He wore a white hat. To the consternation of his liberal critics, he had the courage to call a spade a spade and call the former Soviet Union what it was — the evil empire. Liberals hated Ronald Reagan.

They also dislike President Bush because he distinguishes between good and evil. He calls a spade a spade, and after 9-11 called evil "evil" without mincing any words, to the shock of the liberal establishment. That's what cowboys do.

The radical Muslims are wrong, he said. In the old West, might did not make right.

Right made might.

Cowboys in white hats were always on the side of right.

I am glad my President is a cowboy. He got his man!

Cowboys do that, you know.