An instructive contrast

“Watching the UN watch Ahmadinejad,” writes Victor Davis Hanson, “I was reminded of Europe circa July 1941.” So was I, especially in the context of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Churchillian speech yesterday. Upon the death of Churchill in January 1965, the political philosopher Leo Strauss reflected in class on Churchill’s ascension to the office of Prime Minister in May 1940:

The tyrant stood at the pinnacle of his power. The contrast between the indomitable and magnanimous statesman and the insane tyrant–this spectacle in its clear simplicity was one of the greatest lessons which men can learn, at any time.

It is a lesson that we will have to relearn.

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