Responsibility was a crucial part of the mantra, “Be a man.”

A good man takes responsibility. For men born in the baby boom, as I was, that message was a fundamental part of our education. Men were supposed to do and be other things, too. Just taking responsibility was not enough to make you a good man. But taking responsibility was necessary. All the good looks, big muscles, self-confidence and courage could not cover up the fatal flaw of irresponsibility.

For a man raised in the 1950s, taking responsibility meant taking leadership, making good decisions, accepting the weight of responsibility for knowing what is necessary and doing it. But it’s not enough just to be a leader. You also have to accept the responsibility for what you do. Without prompting, without demands from those whom you may have hurt, by accident or by intent.

Responsibility was a crucial part of the mantra, “Be a man!”

I don’t see this phrase the same way as I did decades ago. I know now that another, sometimes hidden, part of that command was, “Don’t be a woman!”

Don’t be a woman, because men are better. Don’t be a woman, because that means being gay.

I don’t believe that any more. In these things, life has been a better teacher than all my childhood instructors. But I still believe that being a good man means being responsible. I expect the same of a good woman.

Maybe the news about Vice President Dick Cheney’s and Harry Whittington’s hunting accident puts responsibility on my mind. The injuries to Whittington appeared at first to be minor, so it was possible to focus on what this incident shows us about our leaders as men.

The first official word from the White House was that Whittington himself had some responsibility for being shot. The danger of the pellets to Whittington’s heart remained undisclosed for days. Cheney said nothing until Wednesday, letting his friend Whittington take the blame.

I don’t hunt myself and am uncomfortable with guns. I do live in a hunting state and have learned something about the reasons for hunting and its rules. I am sure that one of the fundamental rules is “Look before you shoot.” Shooter takes responsibility.

George Bush, Cheney’s boss, does not set a higher standard. Bush is dealing with much more important problems than a bit of birdshot. He constantly tells us that our national security is at stake in almost every decision he makes. But he and his administration have avoided taking responsibility for their actions or decisions.

Crises, even minor ones like the shooting, force us to act quickly, without thinking about how things will play, before speechwriters can cover up what we say with something palatable. Katrina’s waters washed away New Orleans and washed away the layers of protection around our president, so we could see him as he really is. Bush’s behavior at the beginning of the crisis was so appalling that a Republican-dominated House committee now criticizes the White House response. We know that hours after the levees burst, Bush was playing a guitar and having a good time. He didn’t lead. It took days before he did anything.

Since then, the real problems that the Bush administration has caused have come out into the light; the politicization of FEMA, the indifference to disaster preparation even after 2001, the waste in spending recovery funds. We have heard no responsibility taken by George Bush or those who speak for him, for Katrina, or for lost lives in Iraq, for so misleading the American public about Iraq, for torture.

Cheney is simply following the official White House policy on taking responsibility.

You do not have to believe that we should leave Iraq now or that tax cuts are bad or any other partisan claim to see what kind of men are leading us. Being a good man is not a party issue; it does not favor liberals or conservatives. It is not about what you believe. It is about how a man acts and what he says about those actions afterwards, as their consequences become clear.

I lament that political parties and partisan positions have drifted so far apart that nearly all of our politicians put party before responsibility, defending the indefensible rather than telling us the truth. It is surprising that in these times of military crisis, even the virtues of taking responsibility by fighting for one’s country are attacked, if the man comes from the wrong party or criticizes administration policy. Our current leaders prefer to attack the patriotism of their critics than to accept responsibility for their own actions.

I think that we all suffer from our irresponsible leaders. We don’t get the information we need to make good decisions. Our emotions get deliberately stirred, but our analytical abilities are not encouraged. Our politicians, beginning with our president and vice president, do not respect us.

They believe that they don’t have to be good men to remain as leaders, they just have to act tough. “Being a tough guy” wasn’t necessarily a bad thing when I grew up. Just being tough on other people, though, made you a bully. And being tough, whether for show or for real, was not the same as being good.

Steve Hochstadt teaches history at Bates College. He can be reached by e-mail at: shochsta@bates.edu.

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