No, Mr. Broder, Bush Is NOT "Courageous"

No, what I want to focus on is one sentence by Broder that utterly enraged me: "History will record that both of them saw the threat to the West posed by terrorism and responded courageously."  Courageously?  COURAGEOUSLY, Mr. Broder?  You  must be freakin' kidding me.  You're not?  OK, then, let me give you a REAL example of courage:

At age 76, [Holocaust survivor Liviu] Librescu was among the thirty-two people who were murdered in the Virginia Tech massacre...Librescu, who taught a solid mechanics class in Room 204 in the Norris Hall during April 2007, held the door of his classroom shut while Cho was attempting to enter it. Although he was shot through the door, Librescu was able to prevent the gunman from entering the classroom until most of his students had escaped through the windows. He was struck by five bullets, with a shot to the head ending his life.

Still don't get it, Mr. Broder?  Well, then, here are a few quotes to help you understand what courage is, and what it most categorically is NOT:

Edward Vernon Rickenbacker - "Courage is doing what you're afraid to do.  There can be no courage unless you're scared."

Winston Churchill: "Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."

Plato: "Courage is knowing what not to fear."

Aesop: "It is easy to be brave from a safe distance."

Alfred North Whitehead: "True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason."

Now, let's consider George W. Bush's behavior after 9/11.  Lashing out at a nation that did NOT attack us, just because we could?  Is that courage, or is it completely misunderstanding what should be feared and what need not be feared?  Failing to do whatever it took to get Bin Laden.  Is that courage, or is it simply incompetence?  Standing up and bravely telling Americans to "go shopping?"  Is that courage, or is it an abject failure of leadership at a time of crisis?  Taunting Iraqi militants who were busy attacking and killing American soldiers, vulnerable "in harm's way," to "bring 'em on," while he himself was safe behind layers of security in the White House.  Is that courage, or is it being "brave from a safe distance?"  Failing to ask Americans to do anything - ANYTHING AT ALL - that might require the smallest form of sacrifice while the country was at war for its very survival (according to Bush).  Is that courage, or is it political cowardice?  Refusing to expend political capital to get our nation off of oil that we buy from the same nations that sent the 9/11 murderers to our shores.  Is that courage, or is it utter stupidity?  Giving tax cuts to rich people while sending working class Americans to fight and die in Iraq.  Is that courage, or is it the most craven pandering to his "political base?"

Obviously, the answer to all these questions is a resounding "no, it's not courage."  Unfortunately for America, the President we had in the White House after 9/11 was the same jerk he'd always been - a bullying, blustering, backslapping buffoon.  And a coward.  Thus, instead of doing the hard things after 9/11, Bush did the easy and politically expedient things.  Invading Iraq?  That was the EASY choice; the hard one would have been to stand up to his neocon nutjobs and say, "sorry boys, we're not gonna do it."  Scaring the bejeezus out of the American people by invoking images of mushroom clouds over our cities if we didn't take out Saddam?  That was the easy way out, not the hard and courageous one, which would have required telilng the TRUTH, addressing the root causes of terrorism, leveling with the American people, raising taxes to pay for a long "war for civilization," and asking for deep sacrifice - just as FDR did in World War II.  But noooooo, not George W. Bush, the self-proclaimed "decider."  Why not?  Because he's a coward, plain and simple. Let me spell it out for him:  C-O-W-A-R-D. 

I could go on and on, but I think I'll end this rant now with a quote by John F. Kennedy, a man of both physical and moral courage, who said that "Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction."  Unfortunately, what we've had in the Bush Administration is a lack of purpose, a lack of direction, AND a lack of courage (political, moral, you name it).  Perhaps David Broder isn't old enough to remember JFK - whoops, I guess he is - or maybe he just loves the sound of his own insipid inanity in column after column, week after week.  But here's a message to David Broder: I've seen courage, I've read about courageous people (like Liviu Librescu, Elie Weisel, Paul Rusesabagina), and George W. Bush is certainly not courageous. 

To put it another way, George W. Bush is no Jack Kennedy.  Or Winston Churchill.  Or, for that matter, a working mother trying to put food on the table every day, with a couple of sick kids and no health insurance, and with a husband getting shot at over in Iraq.  Now THAT is courage, something the sheltered, clueless, privileged, "born-with-a-silver-spoon-in-his-mouth" Bush - and his faunding apolotist, David Broder - apparently will never understand.

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