Posted by
KsReaganite on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 7:01:00 PM
Often instinctively we all-yes even politically correct liberals-have a tendency to equate courage with masculinity. The events of the last week amply prove why such instincts should not be automatic presumptions. Two people, in vastly different areas of life, at opposite ends of the country, one a middle aged man and the other a vibrant young woman, both facing a defining moment in their respective careers. Faced with that challenge, one showed quiet courage and the other Quisling-esque cowardice.
Carrie Perjean, groomed from her toddler days to be a beauty queen, was at the last hurdle before being crowned Miss USA, the ultimate prize in that career field. This was Hollywood, the bastion of anti-religious bigotry and liberal fascism run amok. The bias of the judge in question was very well known to all. All Perjean had to do was to mumble a bland, lawyer-like answer to a loaded, explosive question, and the crown would be hers. In a tone that was muted but words that were unmistakable-and unmistakably a kiss of death to her aspirations-Carrie Perjean answered the question honestly and sincerely: her faith led her to the conclusion that marriage was a union of one man and one woman. She conceded that other sincere people may well hold different opinion and values and that was fine in this land of the free. Evidently, from the hateful backlash against her that rages on, difference of opinion with the media elite is anathema to self-declared ‘open minded’ people.
More than three times Carrie Perjean’s age is seventy six year old Arlen Specter, the five term senator from Pennsylvania. Faced with the prospect of standing up for his supposed beliefs in a competitive election, he decided to change parties when promised financial and other incentives from a messianic President of the United States. To believe that this man was once a career prosecutor who took on organized crime bosses in Philadelphia is ..well, reminiscent of the specter of reality. In doing his quisling like act, Arlen Specter inaugurated one party rule in Washington DC. In all honesty, the odds before Specter were daunting. But then, it is in those times of daunting odds that courage comes in handy. Sadly for Arlen Specter, and more so for this country, courage was one thing found sorely wanting in a once brave prosecutor from Philadelphia.
The late John F. Kennedy called courage the most sublime virtue in a public figure. Given its rarity, it is all the more so in these times. And as last week showed, a blonde beauty queen from California has much more courage in her twenty some year old heart than does a seventy six year old man known as a fearless lawman once upon a time.