Churchill and the neocons

I'm annoyed by those within the neoconservative movement who have attempted to commandeer the legacies of Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, two men I happen to admire. Rove claims to be a TR fan, yet he ignores the man's best qualities, such as his love of the environment and his mistrust of big business. The "false Churchill" of the neocons is ably demolished by Glenn Greenwald:

These are the same people -- the President, Lieberman, Bill Kristol, the Fox warriors -- who never tire of dressing up in Winston Churchill costumes and spouting the only historical analogy they know in the most reductionist form possible ("Churchill = strong, war; Chamberlian = weak, anti-war; we must Be Churchill").

But Churchill would have recoiled -- he did recoil -- at their argument that criticism of the Leader and the war are improper and hurts the war effort. Churchill repeatedly made the opposite argument -- that one of the strengths of democracies is that leaders are held to account for their decisions and that those decisions are subject to intense and vigorous debate, especially in war.

And:

Churchill accomplished exactly that which Bush cannot manage -- namely, he convinced his country that the war he was leading was legitimate and necessary and that confidence in his war leadership was warranted.

Other key differences separate Churchill from the current crop of neocons:

1. For all of his bulldog determination, Churchill could and did admit to being wrong (and he often was wrong, at least initially -- on Michael Collins, on Gandhi, on Mussolini, even on the Protocols of Zion hoax). Our current Commander in Chief and his Veep never could manage the trick of confessing error -- of saying, as Churchill once said, "I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught."

2. Chruchill took the blame for the planning of the Gallipoli fiasco in World War I, even though the greatest fault rested with others. Modern necons always blame others for their own failings.

3. Churchill was no chickenhawk; he served his country in combat and was once taken as a POW.

4. Churchill was a brilliant writer. Can you name a single necon who can fairly be called a competent writer? Can you imagine Dubya reciting Hamlet along with the actors, as Churchill once did (or so Richard Burton once reported)?

5. Churchill was anti-fascist.

6. Churchill once said that "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Any neocon who encountered that quote must have stopped reading after the comma.