The Last Roundup

I am a great fan of the American Western.

It’s not just the setting, the wide-open spaces, the improbable mesas arising out of the desert it’s the image of the Independent Man, the one who left the increasingly crowded towns and struck out on his own, perhaps propelled by ambition, a sense of adventure, a drive to escape.

Frederick Jackson Turner, in his famous essay, “The Significance of the American Frontier” described the moving westward frontier as having “enacted a strong influence on American democracy.” When the west was conquered by completion of the transcontinental railroad and the establishment of towns and cities there was a collective national shock, a sort of “Where do we go now?”

The western novels of Louis L’Amour (I have a leather bound set) captured the moment. He created the independent, courageous hero with whom even someone sitting in a tenement in Philadelphia could identify.

And then there were the films.

American director John Ford “discovered” the Painted Desert in Arizona and made the side-rolling and weary voiced, John Wayne, a star.

And television.

The series “Bonanza” about a patriarch and his three sons living on their Nevada ranch, enthralled audiences every Sunday night from 1959 through 1973.

Which makes it so ironic that outgoing President Joe Biden has been using his last few days in office to give Presidential Citizens Medals to people who can only be described as modern day castle rustlers.

Ex-Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney? She lost her seat in a landslide but not before she voted to impeach President Trump, said “I will do everything I can to ensure that the former President never gets anywhere near the Oval Office” and vice-chaired the 1/6 committee which blamed the Capitol protest on President Trump.

Congressman Benny Thomas? Chair of the aforementioned committee who just a few days earlier was floating the idea of a presidential pardon for himself.

“Her” Clinton? Election denier, email bleacher, Fake Dossier funder?

“Bubba Clinton”? Black dress (cough).

And George Soros, currency speculator, donor to multiple far-left candidates.

So, what exactly is Biden, sporting an unexplained chin disfigurement which looks as if he has had an injury or stroke, doing?

He is branding the recipients.

Despite his cognitive and physical decline, Biden’s primitive sense of survival remains.

Humiliatingly chased out of the presidential race in July, 2024, he almost immediately endorsed Kamala Harris, even though the powers wanted a mini-primary of sorts to better legitimate her anointment.

He wasn’t going to have it and beat them to the punch.

What were they going to do? Not endorse, the first woman of color and all she stood for? Unrestricted abortion and open borders? Nope.

Stone-faced Cheney seemed to be trying to get away from Biden, who snatched her hand and wouldn’t let go. It was a Shady Acres Rest Home kind of thing.

Bug-eld, bouffanted Hillary Clinton strutted around.

Soros didn’t show but sent his son, Democrat party Santa to pick up his medal.

Circling the festivities and working the room was Pardonee, Soberee Hunter Biden,

After the ceremony, the recipients ambled away like bovines forever marked with Double Bar B brand.

On the frontier, he with the sizzling iron, rules.