It seems that gun-toting wild frontiersman of the West, Ross Lightfoot, is conquering new frontiers: our international man of intrigue is being adopted as the latest right-wing poster boy by conservative American bloggers.

As blogger Clayton Cramer tells his audience of straw-chewin’, Fox News-watchin’, bourbon sippin’, God fearin’ right-wing fanatics: “Why Don’t We Have Senators Like This?” Now that’s high praise for the man whose cash-carrying, gun-wielding – ahem – “diplomacy” brought him headlines from Turkistan to Townsville last week.

“Australian Senator Ross Lightfoot is in a bit of trouble for running around Iraq with an AK-47 and smuggling cash to the Kurds,” Cramer reports. “Lightfoot represents Western Australia, which is the Australian equivalent of Texas, but it’s still nice to see that the cowboy spirit is alive and well even in boring places like Canberra.”

You can also find these comments on a blog by someone called WC Varones — who describes himself as “a radical libertarian vegetarian” — “Can you picture Ted Kennedy running around Iraq with an AK-47?” asks our radical vegetable. “OK, maybe sitting at a bar in the Green Zone with an AK-47? Nah, still doesn’t work.” Check it all out here.