March 20, 2008

Honor is Dumb

When I think of "honor" the example that comes to mind is the scene at the end of the The Last Samurai where, Tom Cruse and company, to make their point about the honor of the Samurai, charge across the battlefield and are cut down by Gatling gun fire. Its moving, sad, inspirational and gripping. And once you think about it for one second, really, really dumb. Honor is like that.

Which brings us to John McCain, man of honor. As D-Day calls him, the The Klingon Candidate. John McCain's approach to life is all about honor. His lives for moments where he can be honorable, where he can show courage. And honor is dumb. As Ezra Klein has pointed out, the reason McCain sucks at domestic policy is there is no opportunity to have honor or courage. You can't boldly face down the health care system or the mortgage crisis. You have to work at it. There is no honor in better hospital management. There is no honor in math.

And there is no honor in leaving Iraq, at least as John McCain conceives it. If we leave Iraq, our enemies will gloat, and the honor of John McCain will not tolerate that. McCain is willing to kill a lot of people in order to keep his honor intact.

As Bill Maher said “Not Tougher. Dumber.”

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Klingon episodes were some of the best on TNG, especially those written by Ron Moore. The whole subject of what is honorable made for memorable stories.

Who knew Worf had his own Myspace page?