I just viewed Capt. C. B. “Sully” Sullenberger III offer his political opinions on MSNBC news. He indicated he would like to see more political balance in the houses of Congress. I agree (with reservations, citing the need for sanity and honor required of the counterbalance). Therein may lie a problem and could be where the river of information gets shallow for Sully (who may not recognize this particular river as being the cesspool of partisan misinformation it actually is).

It’s no surprise MSNBC chose to have him as a guest…after all, he is a bona fide hero, having saved so many passengers on his ill fated flight which ended up in the Hudson River. People should listen to heroes because their words are important. Right?

In no way could or would I try or diminish Sullenberger’s achievement that fateful day, but Sully isn’t a hero. A hero is someone who puts himself/herself in harm’s way to protect someone else. Sully was already in harm’s way through no choice of his own. To be sure, Capt. Sullenberger is a well trained, very experienced and competent pilot; but most of all, he was incredibly lucky that day (as was everyone else on board). With minimal boat traffic on the river, waters not being overly choppy and craft readily able to come to the rescue, he lucked out big time. He has said so himself. Did he try harder to make his water landing safe because there were so many on board? I’m confident he would have shown the same aeronautical diligence had he been alone in a single engine Cessna under similar emergency circumstances. The fact that there were so many other souls at risk was and is, in retrospect,  irrelevant.

Since that day, Capt. Sullenberger has been lauded with praise and inundated with folks proclaiming him a hero. Under such circumstances who can blame him for falling into the trap of believing it himself?

Sully has every right to express his political views whenever and wherever he chooses. It is, however, to MSNBC’s discredit to pretend Capt. Sullenberger’s opinions carry any more weight than those of a politically aware deli clerk of similar age from Hackensack.