Col. Cooper On Machismo

In his September 2006 Cooper's Commentaries, the Colonel wrote:

We have mentioned it before but we say again that the Spanish term "macho" is not a derogation. To be macho, at least in my day in Latin America, was to be spirited and manly. A previous president of Bolivia, by the name of Barientos, made his point one day when he flaunted his command of the situation by playing with a parachute to the dismay of the political opposition. When President George Bush landed himself on the carrier on the way in from the war zone, he was being macho - to the dismay of the congressional left. He was manifesting machismo, and more power to him. Our notably macho presidents have been George Washington, Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. We can use as much of that as we have lying around.