Oct 06
29
Churchill And Bush
Great article in the American Conservative magazine about why Bush is NOT like Churchill – and quotes an anecdote about historian, John Lukacs…. John Lukacs,
whose book Giuliani was reading around 9/11—the mayor actually carried
the book with him, at least when television cameras were around—knows
quite a lot about Churchill and in an interview with Newsweek,
ten days after the 9/11 attack, made it clear that no, Mr. Mayor,
you’re not Churchill, Osama bin Laden is not Adolf Hitler, and the war
on terrorism is not World War II. “I’m very pleased that Mayor Giuliani
held up my book. That was very pleasant,” Lukacs, an old-world-style
gentleman, told Newsweek. “But I don’t think there are any
parallels. This crisis we now face, no matter what the president says,
is not a war. It’s not the first war of the 21st century. A war is
something between nations or states or sometimes even tribes. Who are
we going to declare war on?” Declaring “war on terrorism” was “just
rhetoric,” Lukacs explained. “But aren’t there parallels between what
Churchill was facing as a leader and what George W. Bush was now
facing?” the magazine interviewer insisted. And how about the way
George W. Bush was carrying himself? Doesn’t he have the stature of a
Churchill? Bush and Churchill “are very different personalities,” the
Hungarian-born historian, who lived in Europe during World War II,
patiently noted. “And this is really not the time to criticize a
president, but neither his capacity nor his character is comparable.
And character is what counts. Intellect without character is not worth
anything.” Ouch.
that Bush and his aides “should use more sober language instead of
talking about crusades. The trouble with people who use this kind of
rhetoric is that they don’t even know that it’s rhetoric.”