Tag: courage

This piece ran last week in newspapers in my very red congressional district (VA-06) ************************** This time, I’d like to talk not about the Republican voters,...

That's the image that emerged of a high-school-aged Mitt Romney from a Washington Post article this week that recounted allegations of his mean and even violent behavior as a prep school student in Michigan.

And that's the lead paragraph of Mean Boys, Blow's New York Times column on the Washington Post blockbuster story on Romney's time at Cranbrook School, and of even greater importance, Mitt's response to the story's assertions.

Blow recounts the facts of Romney's behavior as listed in the story - the"atta girl" shouted out when a closeted gay student spoke, the walking of the seeing impaired teacher into a door, and of course the assault on John Lauber. He quotes Romney's response to the story, and then writes:

It is just after 11 PM on 9/11.  I have just finished watching several hours on the History Channel.  First was a documentary on the Marriott at WTC. Then a remarkable documentary entitled "102 Minutes" with a melding of video professional and amateur of the events of 9-11, from at the site and from those observing elsewhere in the city and across the river in Hoboken NJ.  Finally there was a brief piece about some of those whose video was used, among dozens or even hundreds, to create that documentary.

There are remarkable things in that documentary.  And I will discuss them.

But my focus is this -  in this documentary I saw real courage, real heroism.  

I do not deny the courage of those that go into combat.  It is real.

But imagine just this.  The first tower has come down.  You see fireman walking towards the remaining tower, with hoses, and axes.  And they go in.  They are trying to save lives.  They will lose their own.