Profiles in Courage – Or Maybe Not

Shortly after posting the tribute for Memorial Day(“No Greater Love”)on my blog, I thought to myself: What if politicians were willing to give up their political lives for a cause greater than themselves — the good of the country, in other words — as our young men and women are willing to do with their real lives when they volunteer for military service?

Silly thought, I know, but what if? The thought lingered and teased. Then, just this morning, in today’s Washington Post, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, co-chairs of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, had an Op-Ed piece to that effect, calling on “members of both parties and both houses [to] publicly support the work of the Gang of Six,” the bipartisan group of Senators who have been meeting in an effort to deal with our national debt. Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has taken a break from the talks but reportedly has not left the group.

While it’s admirable that members of the Senate are even talking to one another on a serious subject these days – indicating how low our expectations have sunk for the “world’s greatest deliberative body” – their efforts will go nowhere unless substantial numbers from both parties and both houses are willing to step forward. What do you think are the chances of that happening? Slim to none? A snowball’s chance in hell?”

Just think about it. Members of Congress are not being expected to surrender their lives, fortunes, or sacred honor. In fact, all three aspects of their lives would probably be immeasurably improved if they were only willing to work up a little spine, stand up to their political bases, and be willing to be defeated in the next election, if it even came to that. But, to do that, as Simpson and Bowles suggest, it would take the courage “to prod their own sacred cows into the cattle chute, and everyone give up something they like to protect the country they love.”

Sounds like a reasonable, honorable expectation, but the bogeyman of the next looming election has a way of shrinking politicians’ souls. As A.J. Rowling wrote in one of her Harry Potter books, “It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies; but a great deal more to stand up to your friends....”

Gerald E. Lavey