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We're hearing the word more than ever in these times of snipers, terrorists and others who employ sneak attacks on defenseless people.
By BILL ADAIR, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 14, 2002
WASHINGTON -- We didn't know much about the sniper in the Washington suburbs last week, but there was agreement on one point: The killer is a coward.
President Bush described the shootings as "a series of cowardly and senseless acts of violence." Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening called them "the act of an absolute coward."
That word has often been used to describe the Sept. 11 hijackers. A few hours after the attacks, Bush promised to "hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts."
The authorities have used the word for bombers in Jerusalem, the anthrax killer in the United States and the driver of a midsize car who hit a pedestrian in Toronto in February.
The word has been applied to a Peru legislator (he then showed his courage by challenging his accuser to a pistol duel), politicians in Zimbabwe and a British mugger who stole a pint of milk and loaf of bread from a 79-year-old lady.
But who deserves to be called a coward?
Dictionaries define a coward as "one who shows disgraceful fear or timidity" (Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition) and "a person who lacks courage, especially one who is shamefully unable to control fear and so shrinks from danger or trouble" (Webster's New World Dictionary/Third College Edition).
Does that describe the Sept. 11 attackers?
Susan Sontag, writing in the New Yorker last year, said it's the wrong word.
"If the word 'cowardly' is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others," she wrote. "In the matter of courage -- a morally neutral virtue -- whatever may be said of the perpetrators of (Sept. 11's) slaughter, they were not cowards."
Stephen Hess, a speech writer for President Eisenhower, agrees. The terrorists "are perfectly willing to take their own lives. So I'd be a little cautious about using the word cowardly because they are willing to pay a price."
Bill Maher, the host of the now-canceled TV show Politically Incorrect, said shortly after the attacks that "We have been the cowards -- lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away, that's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, that's not cowardly."
But Donna Jo Napoli, a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College, said the terrorists can be described as cowards because a surprise attack violates the basic principle of a fair fight: A victim should be able to see an assailant.
"We have rules of good behavior," she said. "If you don't declare yourself, a sneak attack is cowardly. It is like tugging on the soccer player's shirt when the ref is looking the other direction."
Don Baer, chief speech writer for President Clinton, used the word in comments he wrote a few hours after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The line was "I will not allow the people of this country to be intimidated by cowards."
Just before he delivered the remarks, Clinton added evil, to describe them as "evil cowards." Baer said that created a clever juxtaposition that struck a chord with the American people.
"It was a much more memorable phrase and a much more apt phrase," he said.
Terrorists can accurately be described as cowards because "you are talking about someone who attacks people who are defenseless," Baer said.
Hess said the term also describes the Washington sniper because of the nature of the crime: randomly killing innocent people from a distance.
Napoli said it's an apt word because the sniper is hiding from his or her prey.
"If we were in the middle of World War II and some troop did a sneak attack on some other enemy, we wouldn't call that cowardly. It's a declared war, everybody is expecting the enemy to attack," she said. "But this kind of thing, where anybody can be a target, it seems cowardly."
-- Staff writer Bill Adair can be reached at (202) 463-0575 or adair@sptimes.com