A Senate Salute for the Captain

Since his rescue at sea from pirates by Navy SEALs, captain Richard Phillips has had a hometown parade, a halftime award at a Celtics-Bulls game, a People magazine spread, a "Today" show interview and the offer of an audience with President Obama.

Yesterday, it was lawmakers' turn at hero worship. The members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee gazed at him in wonder -- as if hoping this real-life Peter Pan, having vanquished a real-life Captain Hook, could arrange for them to be sprinkled with fairy dust and offered a codel to Neverland.

"You're a brave soul," Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) told his witness. Noting the captain's wife sitting behind her husband, Kerry asked: "Does she want you to go out there again exactly the way things were before?"

The captain replied with a New England accent and the sentiments of an old salty dog. "She's a good wife," he said. "She supports whatever my decision is."

Now Mr. Teresa Heinz Kerry was even more impressed. "You didn't even turn to consult with her," he marveled. "I couldn't get away with that."

Let the record show that knowing laughter was heard in the press section.

The stated purpose of the hearing was to examine whether merchant ships need private or military security on board. But it was also a chance for leaders to bask in the reflected glory of a newly crowned American hero -- much the way lawmakers did when they asked US Airways captain "Sully" Sullenberger this year to come testify about his heroics on the Hudson. If Phillips's adventure had happened earlier in the year, in fact, he would have been a shoo-in for a seat in the first lady's box at the president's address to Congress.

The senators demonstrated their own sea legs by trading sailor talk with the Maersk captain.

"This is the only committee," pointed out Richard Lugar (Ind.), the ranking Republican, "where both the chairman and the ranking member have served in the Navy, so we come at this topic with some understanding."

When the captain used a nautical term, Kerry explained what it meant "for all the landlubbers" in the room.

Jim Risch, a Republican from landlocked Idaho, spoke about how "three of our Marines could probably do the job from the fantail."

Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, cut through the sailor talk.