http://localhost:8080/coventry Senior Fellow, Hillsdale College Churchill Project, Writer and Historian Sun, 02 Jun 2024 15:16:55 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 http://localhost:8080/coventry#comment-9515 Thu, 12 Feb 2015 17:16:39 +0000 http://richardlangworth.com/?p=2561#comment-9515 Sadly, you’re probably right; I’ve encountered my share. In some ways he was a product of his time and it’s a feature of the web and 24/7 news to magnify faults. William Manchester wrote: “One of the virtues of Churchill was that he always had second thoughts, and they usually improved as he went along. It was part of his pattern of response to any political issue that while his early reactions were often emotional, and even unworthy of him, they were usually succeeded by reason and generosity.” His virtues and faults were on a grand scale. But the former outweighed the latter.

]]> http://localhost:8080/coventry#comment-9509 Thu, 12 Feb 2015 03:21:39 +0000 http://richardlangworth.com/?p=2561#comment-9509 Whether you accept that Churchill “let Coven­try burn” does not depend on your “feel­ings toward Churchill.” It depends on whether you know the facts. QUITE RIGHT. But of course many people’s views of Churchill are colored by their politics. They like to paint him as ruthless. So they LIKE the “Coventry Calumny.” So he won the war he say; was he really any better than Hitler or Mussolini (whom he praised?). The answer is this. There is no comparison. Churchill was a democratically elected leader who even lost elections now and then without liquidating his opponents. Was Churchill practically perfect in every way? Of course not. But he was a humane and decent person who cared about the British people and who did everything in his power to keep them safe and free. And we, who were not under the guns and bombs, also derive a very great benefit that Mr. Churchill kept aloft the torch of freedom in 1940-1941.

]]>