Item. George Galloway before Saddam Hussein: 'Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.'
Item. Harold Pinter endorsing George Galloway's candidature in Bethnal Green and Bow: 'As you know I'm right behind you. You're a man of true independent mind and spirit, a man of rare courage and honesty. I wish you the very best of luck.'
This raises some interesting logical questions. Is commending somebody for their courage a transitive relation? Such that if B commends the courage of C and A commends the courage of B, then A must necessarily also commend the courage of C? Evidently not. But might there be a kind of reverse transitivity here?
Suppose - purely hypothetically - that B were to commend C for his courage and other putative virtues, and that C happened to be a foul mass murderer, and suppose also that A were then to commend B for his courage and other putative virtues without any qualification pertaining to B's commendation of C. Would some of the odium attaching to C rub off on B and some of that odium in turn rub off on A? Should it?
These deep questions I leave it to you, readers, to think about.