May 2, 2013

Finest Hour 153, Winter 2011-12

Page 9

Around and About


I n 1940, writes political analyst David Gergen for CNN, many “of britain’s older political leaders were so despondent they wanted to capitulate to Adolf Hitler and had signed a peace treaty. [What treaty was that? —Ed.] Churchill rallied younger ministers, turned around the cabinet, and inspired his people to fight to the end…..What we would give for leaders today who are as defiant in the face of trouble?” Cynics might label gergen’s piece “too easy to be good” (Dr. Larry Arnn’s phrase).Today’s media would have put a target on WSC and scuttled him the moment he said something to challenge what Andrew Roberts calls the “Respectable Tendency.” It is certainly the time for inspirational leadership.When was it not time?

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Norman Tebbit, a minister in the Thatcher government well-known as a gadfly, criticised Liberal leader Nick Clegg for a speech on human Rights:”The frailty of his analysis was demonstrated by the way in which he invoked the names of Winston Churchill and the ‘british lawyers’ (Maxwell Fyfe) who created the European Convention on human Rights. It was their purpose, he seemed to claim, to give foreign judges the power to force us to grant voting rights to murderers, rapists, robbers and terrorists in our jails. I can just imagine the scene as Churchill and his Attorney general slapped high fives and danced around the cabinet table in the joy of constructing a system to give illegal immigrant rapists the right to live here on welfare, and polygamists to import their wives.”

Lord Tebbit missed Texas governor Rick Perry in Parade magazine: “I’m a huge fan of Winston Churchill. he represents perseverance and how, when you know what you believe in, you stand up for it day in and day out. I actually asked for the bust of Winston Churchill that was removed from the White house, if I could take it. his daughter wrote to me, the british are so—I just love ’em to death because of how formal they are in certain ways. She wrote me this wonderful letter and said,”I really appreciate your asking to have the bust of my grand…”—I think it was her grandfather. but she said,”It’s property of the british Empire and you’ll have to ask them.” So I asked them and they said,”We’ve got it at the Embassy, and we’re going to keep it. I told them I’ve got busts of George Washington, Sam Houston, Abraham Lincoln, and Ronald Reagan. I was like,’Man, if I could get Winston Churchill, I’d have what may have been the five most influential men in history.'”

Hooray for Sam houston and the british Empire. We love to remind Republicans that if Churchill had had the vote, he’d have voted for the Democrat in every u.S. presidential election from 1916 to 1964.

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