Politicians as a group have a pretty bad reputation.

They are widely considered to be without strong convictions, unable to give a straight answer, intentionally duplicitous and far too often disingenuous in their desire to please everybody. They will say whatever any crowd wants to hear and never deliberately seek to displease.

This modus operandi leads to an enormous lack of candor and a total absence of genuine honesty.

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Why do politicians act this way? I have determined that the answer is simple: They like to stay in office. No, let’s be more emphatic — they love to stay in office. Leaving office would deprive them of their sense of identity. Besides, the title and the trappings of office are very seductive.

So what you have is an ongoing, massive exercise in shameless opportunism. During this process it is very essential to be as unclear as possible in expressing and demonstrating their true feelings.

But there is one duty that comes with the process which clears the brush and boldly shows who is distinctly different. It is called "the vote."

You can be eloquent or stunning in prose, but it doesn’t mean anything in reality. To me, the ultimate deciding factor is, “How did you vote?”

Your vote is your record.

The United States Senate is one of the world’s most exclusive clubs — 100 individuals that the legendary Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-Minn.) once described to me as the “inner ring.” To keep your membership in the “inner ring,” it is helpful to do as fabled Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn (D-Texas) prescribed: “If you want to get along, go along.”

All of what I previously said is to illustrate that, these days, there are very few if any political profiles in courage.

But there are two individuals who deserved that lofty distinction. You have to go back some years, but they are definitely worthy of that description.

On Aug. 10, 1964, there was a joint congressional resolution which authorized the president “to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom.”

This authorization was in response to a supposed attack on two American naval vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin. The vote in the U.S. Senate was President Lyndon B. Johnson’s declaration of war against North Vietnam and his license to do anything and everything he desired without any future interference from the U.S. Congress.

There were two senators who voted against this resolution: Democrats Ernest Gruening of Alaska and Wayne Morse of Oregon. Both had interesting backgrounds.

Gruening had a medical degree from Harvard, then became a journalist, and then became the territorial governor of Alaska for 24 years. He became one of Alaska’s inaugural senators when it became a state in 1959.

Gruening defended his “no” vote by saying on the Senate floor that he objected “to sending our American boys into combat in a war in which we have no business, which is not our war, and into which we have been misguidedly drawn, which is steadily being escalated.”

Morse was a law school professor and dean, then got elected to the Senate in 1945 as a Republican. He then became an independent and, finally, a Democrat.

How prophetic was Morse’s warning? During the Senate debate, he said: “I believe this resolution to be an historic mistake.”

Morse’s slogan throughout his long, storied political career, was “principle above politics.”

When all around them were going along to get along, and maintaining their status and membership in the “inner ring,” Gruening and Morse proudly and defiantly stood apart. These two profiles in courage must have known that, by their “no” votes, they would pay the price — defeat in the next election.

That’s exactly what happened. In 1968, both Gruening and Morse were defeated.

Today, we definitely could use more Gruenings and Morses. It would make for a much better country.

Mark Plotkin is a contributor to the BBC on American politics. He previously was the political analyst for WAMU-FM, Washington’s NPR affiliate, and for WTOP-FM, Washington’s all-news radio station. He is a winner of the Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in writing.