Liz Cheney is acting on principle, and should be admired for it

Liz Cheney is my hero. On positions of policy, I disagree with her almost 100% of the time, but I see her as one of the first moral heroes of this millennia. A highly principled woman willing and able to set aside every one of her personal interests to do what’s right for her country. 

What pains me as an ethicist is the difficulty those with whom I do agree on policy have in recognising her moral leadership. Either because of the simplistic view that anyone who disagrees with us on policy can’t be moral or — more depressingly — because they don’t believe principled leadership exists in the real world. 

The Twitterverse and commentariat are filled with such cynics. For instance, Don Winslow, who strongly feels that his dislike of one thing Cheney did forever disqualifies her from the category of moral leader.