Some years back, I read an article about a researcher who returned the small town where she’d grown up, interviewed all the old teachers that were still around, and compiled the names of several generations of "bullies." She ran them down to find out what came of them. As adults, they were a lonely bunch of isolated, vaguely paranoid, underacheivers. Once, on a visit home during medical school, I was downtown and noticed that the traffic cop on Main Street was a notorious bully from my own childhood. Later, in a career as a psychotherapist, I had several such people as patients complaining of their isolation and interpersonal failures. They were difficult patients – entitled, demanding, trying to coerce me into getting them well [something of a paradox]. They were not in the list of my most successful cases, to be sure.
But I did learn something from them that surprised me. They were cowards. They went through their lives trying to coerce people into doing what they wanted. But when someone stood up to them, drew a line and fought back, the bullies ran. I was surprised. I didn’t expect that. I thought they’d fight to the death – sort of like Hegel’s classical Master/Slave conflict. But I never saw that happen in clinical practice. When their intimidation didn’t work, they retreated.
I think we saw that happen today. Patrick Fitzgerald went straight at Libby [and Cheney]. He stood his ground, throwing a reporter in jail, persisting in his investigation no matter what, and when his progress was blocked by lies, he prosecuted the liar. His adversaries, Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney weren’t willing to face him. Instead, they’re relied on their lawyers to try to mess up his case with procedural monkey wrenches and vague innuendo.
I don’t know what Scooter Libby is, but I know that Dick Cheney is a bully. We all know it. It was crystal clear on Wolf Blitzer’s The Situation Room, but it’s in almost every appearance these days. They may say that they didn’t testify for some lofty legal reason, or on advice of their Attorneys, but it looked like just plain cowardice to me. They got called to the principal’s office for picking on a girl, and they chickened out – a couple of sissies in the end…
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