William Shakespeare, in the play Julius Caesar, declared that “a coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste death but once”. By my calculation, many of the Republican members of the US House and Senate will soon be reaching their quota. I’m absolutely positive that one of our Ohio Congressman is on Number 987.
I was in Washington DC last week. I attended meetings, took part in some lobbying, and spent hours as a tourist wandering the Halls of Congress. A tourist. The doors to the House and Senate buildings were guarded and everyone entering passed through a metal detector. Like other tourists, I had paper and a pen. I didn’t see a single tourist armed with zip ties, bear spray, or any form of weapon. You aren’t surprised. You know the difference between a tourist and a terrorist, a law-abiding citizen and an insurrectionist. Tucker Carlson believes that his audience doesn’t.
Speaker of the House (Lucky 15) Kevin McCarthy has given 40,000+ hours of security footage from the January 6th insurrection to Tucker Carlson of FOX. Mr. Carlson, with the help of some carefully edited tape, is now trying to convince his audience that they didn’t see what they thought they had seen on live TV on January 6, 2021. Tucker claims that it was a crowd of meek tourists who somehow found themselves in the Capitol that day. The Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, is not having any of this. He very publicly denounced Tucker Carlson and McCarthy’s foolish gesture. McConnell and his leadership team stood by the assessment of the Chief of the Capitol Police. Where are the cowards in the Republican controlled House?
Was it an act of cowardice to cower in the House Chamber as the Capitol police held the rioters at bay? NO! Were the Members of Congress who reached for gas masks or were rushed down back stairwells to safe rooms cowards? Absolutely not! Now if these people roaming the halls were, in fact, meek tourists, then yes, the fear the Congressmen exhibited would have been unfounded, perhaps even silly. Was your Republican Congressman standing by the door of his office to welcome these tourists to Washington? Did your Republican Senator offer the QAnon Shaman a special tour of the Senate Chambers? Of course not. That would have been foolish and dangerous. It is your Congressman’s silence now, in the face of dangerous propaganda, that is the real act of cowardice.
Your local Congressman’s office will be quick to counter that this representative of the people is an attorney, a former prosecutor (common stepping stone to Congress), and shouldn’t be expected to address every issue. Ignore the weasel words. I get their weekly emails, newsletters, and fundraising letters. There are lots of pictures with policemen and local sheriffs. And to this day each one of these snivelers can describe in vivid detail the riots in 2020 after George Floyd was handcuffed and killed by a Minneapolis policeman. These Congressmen’s outrage is both palpable and totally safe. Standing up for the United States which means taking on the former president who fomented an insurrection, the vandals and thugs who overran the Capitol, the members of their own party who facilitated the attack, and the media that is whitewashing the affair takes a measure of courage foreign to these members of Congress.
And so these cowards die another death. After 8 years of Donald Trump, I’m guessing we are up to number 987.
Dave
Picture – Winter In DC – David L Cunix