Churchill
August 4, 2017 — Steven Hayward
While we await the arrival in November of the next Churchill film, Darkest Hour, with what looks to be an extremely promising performance by Gary Oldman, let us take note of the passing a few days ago of the actor who up to now offered by far the best screen portrayal of Churchill: Robert Hardy. Turns out Hardy had been a student of both J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis at
»
July 13, 2017 — Steven Hayward
There was a new movie about Churchill right before D-Day out this spring, starring Brian Cox as Winston, that was so bad I didn’t even bother with a smackdown here. Andrew Roberts wrote that “The only problem with the movie – written by the historian Alex von Tunzelmann – is that it gets absolutely everything wrong. Never in the course of movie-making have so many specious errors been made in
»
December 21, 2016 — Steven Hayward
Tim Alberta’s National Review article, “Conservatism in the Trump Era,” is a terrific piece of reporting, well worth taking in. Among other questions, it looks at the notion of whether the new “economic nationalism” that Trump, or at least his amanuensis Steve Bannon, is working out in real time will confound or corrupt conservatism—or make for an enduring Republican majority that scrambles the voter alignments of the last two generations.
»
October 22, 2016 — Steven Hayward
Scott was very kind this morning to draw attention to my Weekly Standard article “Crisis of the Conservative House Divided.” I would have done so myself, but I was on the road all day yesterday on a completely frivolous and speculative venture: I drove up to Modesto, the location where American Graffiti was filmed set, to meet up with my two best pals from high school (we call ourselves “The
»
September 15, 2016 — Steven Hayward
While we ponder the medical mystery of Hillary Clinton and scour Donald Trump’s latest test results, may we pause to take in the greatest doctor’s note of all time: Which also reminds me of Churchill’s response to King Feisal of Saudi Arabia, who had told Churchill that Islam forbid drinking alcohol as they were sitting down to dinner. To which Churchill sensibly replied: “My religion commands the consumption of alcohol
»
April 23, 2016 — Scott Johnson
President Obama’s ignorance of Winston Churchill is monumental. It is such that at his first press conference in 2009 Obama could quote Churchill in support of Obama’s high-minded approach to war: “We don’t torture.” If you know anything, and I mean anything, about Churchill, however, you know Churchill never said any such thing. I made this point at the time in “Obama veers into the Daily Ditch.” Yesterday at his
»
November 30, 2015 — Steven Hayward
Today is the 141st birthday of Sir Winston Churchill, and as such we ought to recur once again to Leo Strauss’s eulogy, delivered in class in 1965: The death of Churchill is a healthy reminder to students of political science of their limitations, the limitations of their craft. The tyrant stood at the pinnacle of his power. The contrast between the indomitable and magnanimous statesman and the insane tyrant–this spectacle
»
August 2, 2015 — Steven Hayward
Scott reminded us this morning of Winston Churchill’s notice of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, suggesting that we ought to take seriously the statements of murderous purpose whether they come from a seemingly implausible Austrian-born corporal, or a soon-to-be nuclear-armed Iranian ayatollah. Of course, Mein Kampf was mostly ignored in the 1930s or dismissed as the unimportant or irrelevant thoughts that Hitler would discard once he assumed the “responsibilities” of high office. As
»
July 15, 2015 — Steven Hayward
“Nearly always Governments which seek peace flag in their war efforts, and Governments which make the most vigorous war preparations take little interest in peace. The two opposite moods consort with difficulty in the human mind yet it is only by the double and, as it might seem, contradictory exertion that a good result can usually be procured.” —Winston Churchill, Marlborough: His Life and Times, Vol. IV, chapter 3.
»
July 3, 2015 — Steven Hayward
As with so many other things, Churchill was on to the problem of the administrative state and today’s presumptuous liberal cosmopolitanism from early on. A 1933 speech offers a perfect description of our Beltway mentality today: The worst difficulties from which we suffer do not come from without. They come from within. They do not come from the cottages of the wage-earners. They come from a peculiar type of brainy
»
June 18, 2015 — Steven Hayward
Those of you who inhabit Facebook may be acquainted with the practice of “Throwback Thursday,” where typically you post old photos of yourself or something. Well, I have the ultimate Throwback Thursday item for today. I spent most of today going through a treasure trove of Harry Jaffa papers. Found this: a 1952 mash note to Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Jaffa had quoted as the frontispiece to his great first
»
May 7, 2015 — Steven Hayward
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania, one of the markers on the way to U.S. entry into World War I. George Will wrote about it the other day in his column, coming close but not quite embracing some of the old rumors and conspiracy charges that the British wanted the Lusitania sunk in hopes of getting the U.S. off the sidelines: It is commonly but
»
April 25, 2015 — Steven Hayward
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Gallipoli campaign—ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand, since they provided the bulk of the troops for this ill-fated venture that became known as “Churchill’s Folly.” Anyone who has seen the early Mel Gibson film, Gallipoli, will know that the operation ended up with the same kind of trench warfare and appalling slaughter that characterized the Western Front. The British
»
March 16, 2015 — Scott Johnson
Our friends at the Claremont Review of Books have just published their Winter number and, as usual, let me pick three reviews to preview for our readers. You can subscribe here for $19.95 and have immediate online access thrown in for free. Tributes to Harry V. Jaffa lead off the new issue. Jaffa was the guiding spirit of the CRB; the CRB calls on a handful of his former students
»
February 4, 2015 — Steven Hayward
Sad news from London this morning of the passing of Sir Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill, and the author of something like 40 other books—many of them big, big books, some of them about Jewish history and the Holocaust. He began his career as a research assistant to Randolph Churchill, and after Randolph died succeeded him as the official biographer, going on to write six of the
»
January 25, 2015 — Scott Johnson
Our observation of the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Winston Churchill yesterday put me in mind of Winston Churchill’s failed meeting with Adolf Hitler. It’s a story I’ve mentioned here before and ask your indulgence in mentioning again as the occasion warrants. Among the many qualities that made Churchill a man out of joint with his times was this one: he frequently wrote and spoke favorably of the Jews
»
January 24, 2015 — Steven Hayward
As we mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Churchill today, I want to pick a minor quibble that I think is not so minor after you think it through a bit. Several fine commentators, such as Victor Davis Hanson, have embraced the theme of Churchill as “the Last Lion,” borrowing from the title of William Manchester’s compulsively readable three-volume biography of Churchill. To be sure, Churchill was, like
»
