Is courage obsolete? Heroism is awfully hard to find in this era of expedience, excuses, and evasion. But as the people and ideas featured in a special issue of Fast Company make resoundingly clear, courage is still the essential virtue. Among the many articles, including a great essay by John McCain, I came across a piece written by Pete Hamill discussing the courage to use clear, unobstructed language.

For me, the article directly tied into the current election season, chock-full of meaningless language and ever-shifting policy positions. I wondered aloud where the courageous politicians are that say what they mean and mean what they say - regardless if it is convenient at a given moment. In particular, Hamill explored Barry Goldwater’s record on this matter, and compared it to today’s politicians on both the left and right:

Instead of Goldwater’s blunt lucidity, we get weasel words, as in Bush’s “weapons-of-mass-destruction-related program activities,” from his 2004 State of the Union Address. We get dissembling, as in Rumsfeld’s tortured answer to a reporter’s question about Abu Ghraib: “My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe is technically different from torture.” We get legalistic evasions, as when then-vice president Al Gore replied to a 1997 question about his phone calls from the White House soliciting Democratic campaign contributions: “There is no controlling legal authority that says this was in violation of the law.” And we get Bill Clinton’s notorious nonanswer to the Starr grand jury: “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ means.”

Great examples, indeed. Beyond what we’ve become accustomed to from many politicians, I feel a general lack of leadership, courage and just doing what’s right. Too often for my taste, people take the convenient road to personal gain with disturbing disregard for the good of society. Somehow, I sense that the public at large is ready for a new leader that rises to today’s challenge of dumbed-down cover-your-ass safe political phraseology.

Hamill later transitioned into why speaking bluntly is a matter of courage:

Telling the truth, of course, can carry heavy penalties: condemnation, ostracism, slander, the end of careers. Telling the truth often requires as much courage as that of the foot soldier, the police officer, the fire fighter. The arena is different; there are no rocket-propelled grenades, no roaring fires or desperadoes with guns. But truly brave people share one big thing: In doing their duty, they can lose everything. Without such people, we can lose everything, too. No democracy can survive if it is wormy with lies and evasions.