Cowardice is something to be ashamed of showing.

I didn't want to begin without making sure Q begging wasn't going to happen.What's a coward?We can define a coward with a dictionary, but to really understand what cowardice is we must see it's ramifications in context.Ted Kennedy"Around midnight on the night of July 18-19, 1969, U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy had left a party and was driving his black, Oldsmobile sedan when it went off a bridge and landed in Poucha Pond on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. Kennedy survived the accident but his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, did not. Kennedy fled the scene and did not report the accident for nearly ten hours. Although Ted Kennedy was subjected to a subsequent investigation and proceedings, he was not charged with causing Kopechne’s death; a point that many contend was a direct result of Kennedy family connections. The Chappaquiddick incident remained a scar on Ted Kennedy’s reputation and thus prevented him from making a serious run at becoming president of the United States." (1) In this example Senator Kennedy fled the scene of his accident after making several attempts to rescue his passenger. The key part of this story that shows Kennedy's cowardice lies in his fleeing the scene and failing to return to report the accident for nearly 10 hours. Bill Clinton"Three days later, January 26, Clinton attempted to quell all of the speculation. Standing alongside First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vice President Al Gore in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Clinton waged his finger at news cameras and declared: "But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time -- never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people."" (2)In this situation Clinton was already facing widespread public scrutiny from his ongoing case with Paula C. Jones and the Whitewater scandal. His display of cowardice is shown with his public denial of sexual relations with Lewinsky and even perhaps his need for an extra-marital affair.Jack McCall "On August 2, 1876, in the Nuttal & Mann's #10 Saloon in Deadwood, McCall shot Hickok in the back of the head with a double-action .45-caliber revolver, shouting "Take that!" Hickok, in contrast to his normal habit of sitting in a corner to protect his back, on that day had sat with his back to the door while engaged in a game of poker. Ironically, the killing was apparently over McCall's drunken resentment of an act of generosity by Hickok, Hickok having offered McCall money to buy breakfast after McCall had lost it all playing poker the previous day. McCall claimed, however, that the killing was retribution for Hickok having previously killed McCall's brother in Abilene, Kansas.... McCall then fled town to Wyoming, where he would habitually brag, at length, about the details of how he had killed Hickok in a fair gunfight. Unfortunately for McCall, however, the Wyoming authorities refused to recognize the result of McCall's first trial on the grounds of Deadwood having been in Indian Territory at the time and contended that McCall was liable to be tried again." (3)McCall, rather than accept his defeat, shot his opponent in the back of the head. McCall then fled the scene, failed, tried to flee again, and was eventually caught by a large crowd while holed up in a butcher's shop. In order to avoid punishment he made up a phony story about seeking retribution for his brother's death. It was later found that McCall never had a brother. His cowardice is evident throughout his story.In the end their cowardice sealed each of their fates. Ted Kennedy never became President. Bill Clinton damaged his marriage and became a skid-mark on the underwear of Presidential history. Jack McCall became an infamous coward and was hanged for his murder. Courage "Courage is knowing what not to fear." - PlatoFear is an essential part of humanity's success as a species, but fear is not always properly warranted. Courage is about control over fear. It's about shutting out the irrational thoughts and doing the best practical and ethical thing. We honor our most courageous leaders in history because of their ability to make the right choice when it mattered.In each of the examples the guilty party lacked the essential elements that describe great people. The courage to accept a mistake. The courage to be responsible. The courage to lose face. The courage to accept defeat. The courage to find an ethical solution to what must have been a sexually lacking marriage. Be Ashamed The traits of a coward: The inability to control one's thoughts and emotions. The deficiency of information needed to rationalize. The failure to rationally analyze a situation. Some may feel proud of their cognitive inferiority, but that's called delusions of grandeur. The mentally ill are not similar by coincidence."Schizophrenia is characterized by profound disruption in cognition and emotion, affecting the most fundamental human attributes: language, thought, perception, affect, and sense of self. The array of symptoms, while wide ranging, frequently includes psychotic manifestations, such as hearing internal voices or experiencing other sensations not connected to an obvious source (hallucinations) and assigning unusual significance or meaning to normal events or holding fixed false personal beliefs (delusions). No single symptom is definitive for diagnosis; rather, the diagnosis encompasses a pattern of signs and symptoms, in conjunction with impaired occupational or social functioning" (4) 1. http://history1900s.about.com...;2. http://www.historyplace.com... 3. http://murderpedia.org...;4. http://www.schizophrenia.com...;