Looking for Courage

The mainstream media is not good at recognizing genuine courage in its multifarious forms. It's easy to report about heroism when it involves physical courage. And of course the mainstream media laps it up when presented with make-believe courage, like when it's nicely gift-wrapped around unwitting real soldiers by the Pentagon or the White House.

But when someone does something that takes guts of a different sort, like, for example, speaking out as a soldier on the ground against Bush's policies, big media is timid about recognition. It's the same story when a politician stands up for principle knowing that the savage slings and arrows are coming. Well, it would be the same story if we had any courageous politicians.

Where are they? Well, the Democrats seem poised to cave in again on fundamental constitutional principles. Yes, the wiretapping bill that many Democrats are endorsing may, as they suggest, be a bit better than the "temporary" legislation they capitulated on in August. But that isn't saying much. The so-called "Restore Act" bill still would allow one-year "umbrella" or "basket" warrants to be issued by a secret court as a substitute for individual warrants (an alternative bill sponsored by Rep. Rush Holt doesn't authorize basket warrants). And the Restore Act provisions for increased congressional oversight shouldn't make anyone feel better given the Congress's miserable record on oversight of this administration.

Who is going to stop the steady erosion of the constitution? Who among the Democrats is prepared to raise hell? Where is a hero - just one? We can't afford to wait any longer for a display of courage. The Democrats should heed the words of Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter in his concurring opinion in the Steel Seizure Case: "The accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day. It does come, however slowly, from the generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the most disinterested assertion of authority."

Let's just fantasize for a moment. Let's imagine there was actually a Democratic senator or representative who said 'enough' and who stood up in the chamber like Mr. Smith, raging for days about Bush's abuse of executive power and his administration's flagrant disregard of Constitutional protections. And let's suppose that gradually other Democrats stood up with that member of Congress and said no to the president and his demagogic minions who shout "soft on terrorism!"

It would be nice. But, going back to the mainstream media and its constricted view of what constitutes courage, I'll venture to say that many big media reporters, pundits and editorial pages would quickly jump on those standup Democrats for being "out of the mainstream" and "to the left of average Americans." And these likely would be the same people who rightly accuse the Democrats of being spineless.

So be it. Democrats finally displaying backbone may not be called heroes by the media, but they just might be by many of those "average" Americans who aren't as complacent about the constitution as the media believes. In any case, as President Andrew Jackson said, "One man with courage makes a majority."