Quoting Churchill’s famous remark that when he became Prime Minister he felt as if he “were walking with destiny,” Morrison writes: “I want my president to have concerns, but not fears. I don’t want him to go on television and kvetch. I want my president to walk with destiny.” Among the comments to this article is one asserting that Churchill and President Wilson “orchestrated a plan” to get America into World War I by sinking the liner Lusitania.

Dear oh dear…..

Please, Mr. Morrison…

For writers to offer comparisons of today’s politicians with Winston Churchill is remindful of what Churchill said (drawing laughs) to the U.S. Congress in 1941, just after the Japanese had attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor: “They have certainly embarked upon a very considerable undertaking.”

As reported here, Obama actually has more Churchilliana than Bush had. And Obama alluded favorably to Churchill (albeit inaccurately) during the debate about waterboarding OBL’s followers at Guantanamo. Also, Obama’s grandfather left gaol in Kenya before Churchill returned to power in 1951. And Churchill actually expressed sympathy toward the Kenyan rebels. The details are on this site.

But kvetching and the current incumbent aside, you simply don’t parachute 10,000 commandos on a city, a feat beyond even Hitler’s Luftwaffe. For years  we knew that during World War I the British shipped arms on passenger liners. But Churchill and Wilson did not set up RMS Lusitania to be torpedoed. No, they did not withdrew a naval escort. No they did not order a course that magically put the ship in the crosshairs of the U-20. Apparently we’re supposed to believe they knew where all the U-boats were, too.

The Lusitania nonsense was refuted years ago by Professor Harry Jaffa in the book Statesmanship (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1981), and further demolished in my book, Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality: What He Actually Did and Said.