In myth or fictional movies, there’s always a hero who does the heroic stuff. In history, though, there are heroes who perform such incredible feats of courage and valor that they’re added to history. Add a generation or two, and that history becomes legend. Add another generation or two, and that legend becomes mythic.
When Rome trembled before foreign hosts, in ancient times, one man stood at the opening of a narrow wooden bridge across the Tiber River. After the Etruscans attacked, the Romans panicked, and the bridge behind Horatius had to be destroyed before the enemy could use it. Scarred, one-eyed Horatius Cocles refused to yield, fighting until the bridge collapsed, then jumping off the bridge and swimming to safety.
When others faltered, he stood firm, saving Rome.
Kash Patel faces his own bridge two thousand years later. That bridge doesn’t span a river; instead, it spans the credibility of American institutions. The enemy isn’t he Etruscan army, but a hostile political class along with an equally hostile press corps.
Although his words are his sword, Patel is doing what Horatius did: buying time, holding the line, and keeping America from being placed in greater danger by a recklessly left-wing movement determined to break through.
Standing at the Modern Bridge
In an oversight hearing, which resembled a trial, Kash Patel appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. America’s top lawman was treated as an enemy combatant. Two of the biggest heads, not judge showmen but literally the two largest heads, went to verbally joust with Patel.
Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) accused him of lessening the country’s security, making it less safe. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a man who looks like a golf ball atop a tee, tried belittling Patel simply as “nothing more than an internet troll.”
Since Kash Patel isn’t a milquetoast FBI director, like Chris Wray, he fired back, giving Schiff a taste of truth by calling him “the biggest fraud ever to sit in the United States Senate.” And, according to the script, the crowd went wild. The chamber turned into a spectacle, with Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) pounding his gavel to restore order.
The press, of course, ate it up, probably because they did what they were told to do; to them, Patel is the perfect villain.
President Donald Trump’s FBI director, the man who dared to terminate entrenched bureaucrats and share uncomfortable facts, defends what his FBI has accomplished under his watch: moving aggressively against crime, responding rapidly in cases like Charlie Kirk’s assassination, and insisting on transparency, especially when mistakes are made.
The Charlie Kirk Case
When Patel announced that a suspect in Kirk’s murder was in custody, his fiercest critics called it premature.
However, by releasing photographs and drawings in public, his larger points stood: Law enforcement located the suspect in 36 hours, when the suspect’s own father recognized him and turned him in.
In high-profile cases, that speed is unheard of, but the moronic left castigated him not for his results, but for pining for optics. Horatius never worried about optics; he worried about keeping the enemy off the bridge, ignoring criticisms shouted along the riverbank.
The Epstein Question
Jeffrey Epstein’s network caused the same dynamic in direct questioning. Patel was bluntly saying there’s no client list, despite feverish speculation. Investigations discovered no credible evidence implicating others in Epstein’s trafficking.
Prosecutor Alex Acosta’s sweetheart deal years ago was the original sin, Patel said, leaving scars on victims, while creating a culture of distrust.
It didn’t matter that Patel’s candor was really genuine. Democrats accused him of a cover-up, with the media (of course) piling on.
It didn’t matter. Patel held firm, declaring he would not manufacture evidence to satisfy any conspiracy theories; plus, he wasn’t going to ignore existing crimes in favor of political vendettas.
Like Horatius, Patel stands against an advancing force not because his task is simple, but because, in his situation, retreat isn’t acceptable.
Underappreciated, Yet Indispensable
In his life, Horatius wasn’t showered with praise, surviving half-blind and scarred, a soldier remembered only later in legend. Patel, I think, is also underappreciated. The press continually paints him as reckless, while the left calls him dangerous. Yet his work speaks plainly.
Patel’s first several months have been busy. Within the FBI, he has rooted out corruption, redirected resources towards the crimes devastating American families every day, and had the audacity of being aligned with President Trump in a Washington establishment that completely despises them both.
Kash Patel isn’t perfect; nor was Horatius. But without such men willing to stand against a multitude, imperfect as they are, institutions collapse while nations fall.
Final Thoughts
Horatius’s legend endures because it captures a truth that runs much deeper than history. Sometimes there is a bridge that a single man must hold. A legion didn’t save Rome; courage did.
Kash Patel is our Horatius, standing in hearings where the arrows come as questions; where the bridge isn’t wood, but trust in justice; and where the bridge’s collapse means a flood of partisan abuse that overwhelms ordinary people. Patel holds back the advance of the left, which uses government as a weapon and endangers Americans because they place politics over safety.
Yet, the bridge may yet hold; if it does, it’s because of men like Patel, noble and underappreciated, refusing to yield when yielding was the easiest choice.
History remembers such men far better than critics; after all, do we ever read about Horatius’s critics?
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