"A gentleman accepts the responsibilities of his actions, and bears the burden of their consequences, even when he did not himself instigate them, but only acquiesced to them, didn't say no, though he knew he should."
William Faulkner
The Reivers

Real men don't get misty over much. As we get older, however, it somehow becomes more acceptable, linked perhaps in the eye of the beholders to our progressive loss of muscle tone, memory, quick-firing cynical synapses, and hair. At this point in life I'm a sucker for what, in my youth, we called stand up guys: a men willing to do the right thing and, perhaps even more important, men willing to take responsibility for what they did or did not do, no matter what the consequence. We have all heard the stories of such people. Some of us are even lucky enough to have known one or two.

It is perhaps the intensity of the admiration we feel for those who do the right thing that accounts for the intensity of the disappointment or anger we feel toward those who do not, whether it be a coach or a cop or a congress; a coward on another continent, or the one we see in the mirror each morning. Those of us who serve the public (or do our best to do so) have a special responsibility in this regard: to uphold what's right; to oppose what's wrong; and to bear the burden of their consequences. Inaction should not be an option for those who have assumed the burdens and benefits of a public trust. And, in the end, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, those we serve will remember not the words of their enemies, but the silence of their friends.