Cowboy up, America

As our nation mourns the death of one of the great leaders of our time, President Ronald Reagan, I believe it is important to point out the remarkable similarities between "The Great Communicator," as Reagan was called, and our current great leader, President George W. Bush. \n - Both have baseball in their background -- President Reagan was once a play-by-play man for the Chicago Cubs, and President Bush was once a part-owner of the Texas Rangers. \n - Both were two-term governors of their respective western states -- President Reagan in California from 1966 to 1974 and President Bush in Texas from 1994 to 2000.\n - Both experienced short recessions in the early part of their presidencies -- President Reagan from July 1981 to November 1982, and President Bush from March 2001 to November 2001.\n - Both enacted drastic tax cuts that stimulated the economy -- President Reagan with the Economic Recovery Act of 1981 and President Bush with the Jobs and Growth Tax Reconciliation Act of 2003. President Reagan's tax cuts caused a 1980s economic boom. It looks like President Bush's tax cuts are in the beginning stages of doing the same. \nRemember that President Reagan's economic policies added 17 million new jobs, an average of a little more than 2 million per year during his presidency. In the first five months of this year alone, President Bush's policies have added 1.2 million jobs -- a number that promises to keep rising.\nBut most important of all their similarities is their ability to recognize and confront evil. In President Reagan's time, the communist Soviet Union threatened the United States' way of life with a large military buildup, including nuclear weapons. President Reagan realized almost 50 years of appeasement had produced nothing but famine and death in the Soviet Union and had raised the fear level of the American people. President Reagan recognized the communist economic policies supporting its military would not allow them to keep pace with the free-market approach we have in the U.S. \nAnd he was right. We started to build up a large cache of nuclear weapons. The pressure he applied caused the eventual collapse of the "Evil Empire." This was accomplished in the face of widespread disagreement from the international community, as well as from the Appeasement (Democratic) Party within the U.S. But President Reagan stuck with his principles and eventually won the Cold War.\nNot unlike the experience during the Cold War, we now face an ominous threat to our American way of life. This threat has no face, as it is not represented by a single country. Numerous groups of terrorists around the world now threaten the very freedoms we so often take for granted. \nThese terrorists seek to erase our freedom. The Sept. 11 attacks have allowed our president to realize this growing threat and just like President Reagan, he has decided to confront it. \nWe have fought for freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq -- both countries with destructive regimes and terrorist links. We have done all of this through the criticisms of parts of the international community and those within our own country. But President Bush has stuck to his resolve, and now we have the terrorists on the defensive, rather than on the offensive and attacking America. \nOne last important similarity between President Reagan and President Bush is they both have been called "cowboys" by critics because of their aggressive foreign policies. \nIf being a "cowboy" means aggressively confronting the enemies of freedom, I say, "Cowboy up, America"