Profiles in Courage and in Cowardice - A Commentary

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

There are times when it is appropriate for the Madison Conservative to step out of its analytical stance and head off into the realm of personal commentary.

This Saturday necessitates that action.

Before addressing the title of this post, however, a quick aside that provides a wonderful example in contrasts.

This past week saw a group of World War II veterans say to hell with a barricade that was preventing them from visiting the open air World War II memorial in Washington D.C., closed due to the government shut-down. No one has yet explained how an open air memorial can be closed, but that is for another day. These men, visiting the Memorial on what are called ‘Honor Flights’ pretty much sums it all up nicely. These men are men of honor, men who deserve the title ‘hero’, men who exemplify the term courage under fire, and their stance of removing the barricades and pushing past the security officers encapsulated the event nicely. These heroes had no patience for cowardice, political or otherwise. They were intent on honoring their fallen brothers, and the thought that politicians playing games would somehow impede their final mission was unacceptable.

So they acted as heroes act – they took positive action to achieve their goal.

The fact that this administration, that our commander-in-chief would allow the barricades to be erected borders on political cowardice.

This nation has had a sacred compact with our service men and women from America’s founding. We do not allow petty political gamesmanship to dishonor our veterans.

What is little known or addressed is the fact that due to the petty budgetary politics currently in play, the cemetery in Normandy, France is being neglected, a victim of the government shutdown.

America does not treat her heroes this way – it is a disgrace and the President should be taken to task and be asked how he has allowed it to happen.

His failure to do so must be accepted as evidence of his abdication of duty as commander in chief.

So we have the acts of heroes this week in Washington, and this Saturday we have the anniversary of murdered active duty seamen and the subsequent acts of true cowardice by the then sitting president in response to those acts of war.

To wit:

{ed. note. I am the son, grandson and nephew of World War II veterans, and a proud Navy vet myself}

The USS Cole bombing was a suicide attack against the United States Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Cole on October 12^th 2000, while it was harbored and being refueled in the Yemen port of Aden.

Seventeen American sailors were killed, and 39 were injured.

The terrorist organization al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack.

For those who may have somehow forgotten, al-Qaeda are the terrorists who less than a year later were responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

President George W. Bush has been long held accountable by the political left for being somehow responsible for not doing more to prevent the attacks.

The liberal left should examine the facts before making those claims, but to do so would require honest thought.

The reason al-Qaeda was able to plot the 0/11 attacks was due solely to the cowardice, the raw unadulterated cowardice of President William Jefferson Clinton, he of the impeachment, of the convicted charge of perjury, the abdication of his law license as a result, as well as the $90,000 fine for lying under oath, while as president, to a federal judge.

And for repeatedly molesting a woman not much older than his daughter.

This is the man the liberal left idolizes fondly as a great president.

William Jefferson Clinton took no action as a result of the USS Cole attack.

What constitutes an act of war more than murdering active duty sailors, on an active duty naval vessel?

Clinton took the cowardly response of assuring “that the guilty would be brought to justice”.

This is what President Obama has claimed on several occasions in response to acts of terror, most notably in the case of the September 11^th attacks on our embassy in Libya.

An assault on our embassy, where the ambassador and three brave American service men were murdered, sounds an awful lot like an act of war.

President Obama has promised that the guilty would be punished.

Uh-huh.

It is surely hoped that he will not follow the Clinton model of cowardice under fire.

The American people must take note of Clintons’ cowardice, and hold President Obama to the same standard.

We must honor our veterans, past, present and future.

Putting up barricades to memorials and letting those who murder our military walk free is not the way to honor those who honor us by their service.

I will continue to use this platform to remind anyone who will listen that Clinton was a coward. There is little worse than can be said than to denote a commander as a coward, but Clinton has earned it.

The American people must pray that President Obama does not earn the disgraced sobriquet of coward.