COURAGE

Courage. The pundits all agree, that’s what’s lacking in our politicians. If only they had the courage to stand up to the bottle blonde. To the NRA. To climate deniers. The list goes on and on. But truth be told, courage doesn’t have a damn thing to do with it. Courage is the ability to face danger or pain or, at least, extreme difficulty without fear. But what danger do politicians face? What is the worst thing that could happen to Susan Collins or Ted Cruz? They could lose their next elections. But that begs a further question: So what? What is it about their jobs that makes them willing to sell their souls in order to keep them. (Okay, maybe Ted Cruz is a bad example for the soul metaphor, but you get my point.)

It can’t be the salary, because many senators and members of the House are loaded anyway, and those who aren’t have the immediate prospect of making a ton of money selling their influence on K Street. It can’t be the pension, because that’s fully vested after just five years, when they “retire” at 80% salary for life. So why would Ted Cruz watch the bottle blonde accuse his father of helping assassinate JFK, publicly call his wife ugly, nickname him “Lyin’ Ted”—yeah, all that actually happened—and still grovel for his support? What could possibly make his job that attractive?

Take a close look at how we treat members of congress, keeping in mind, they’re pretty much in charge of the way they treat themselves. As an example, they built themselves a subway so they could travel to adjacent buildings more easily. Let me repeat that. They built themselves a subway. Each Senator has a magnificent, early American office, plus a somewhat more modest “hideaway” office, where he or she can hide away from parents of children killed by automatic weapons, constituents without money, the fake press, and other unpleasantness. When they go out to dinner in Washington, these people who couldn’t jump the line at the Olive Garden in Times Square are immediately ushered to the best tables at the most exclusive restaurants, where lobbyists pick up the tabs. With their private gyms, basketball courts, pool, sauna, and steam rooms, our Senators and Congresspeople are, essentially, treated like royalty. This is Louie Gohmert we’re talking about here.

The corollary to the “they need more courage” meme is just as hollow. Members of Congress who are often lauded for their courage turn out not to have any. Ted Kennedy was eulogized as the “Lion of the Senate.” (The lion actually embodies courage. Remember the Wizard of Oz?) But Kennedy lacked the courage to pull Mary Jo Kopechne out of his car when he drove it into a lake, in 1969. Twenty-two years later, he failed to say a single word in support of Anita Hill when she was being raped in front of the Senate Judiciary committee, because he was so afraid that someone might bring up his treatment of Ms. Kopechne. I got a close look at Senator Kennedy, when I ran into him at a small airport around 1990. He didn’t look like a lion; he looked like a drunk. His head was the size of a basketball packed in an Amazon carton.

My conclusion is that neither courage nor the lack of it has much to do with making Washington revolve on its axis. Self-interest, narcissism, immorality, yes. Courage, not so much. So let’s stop talking about it incessantly. The word is getting a bad name. And God knows, we’re going to need it.