Tag: Martin Luther King Jr.

It’s Baaaack! The Winston Churchill Bust Furore, Round 3

It’s Baaaack! The Winston Churchill Bust Furore, Round 3

N.B. The Epstein sto­ry is expand­ed in The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor, 30 Jan­u­ary. 

It seems that every four or eight years we must have a Great Media Hoe­down over a bust of Win­ston Churchill by Jacob Epstein arriv­ing at, or depart­ing, the White House. The revolv­ing door bust belongs to the British Embassy. It has twice resided on loan in the Oval Office. Ipso fac­to, it has twice returned to the Embassy. Per­haps it should hang on a Zip line between the two build­ings to con­ve­nience the spir­it of the moment.

When­ev­er the Epstein makes a trip back or forth, the media explodes in spec­u­la­tion.…

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Mr. Stern, Mr. Trump, Churchill Quotes and Misquotes

Mr. Stern, Mr. Trump, Churchill Quotes and Misquotes

Novem­ber 27th— Writ­ing in the Dai­ly Beast, Mr. Mar­low Stern prais­es Kristin Scott Thomas (“Clemen­tine Churchill” in the new movie Dark­est Hour) and announces: “Don­ald Trump is No Win­ston Churchill.” (Past doubt, but who is?)

Mr. Stern him­self offers only one Churchill quote and gets it right: “A free press is the unsleep­ing guardian of every oth­er right that free men prize; it is the most dan­ger­ous foe of tyran­ny.” (Col­liers, 28 Decem­ber 1935.)

Bin­go! That’s an obscure one. For­give him for vast­ly exag­ger­at­ing Churchill’s alco­hol intake. (WSC’s “six whisky sodas” were described by his pri­vate sec­re­tary as “scotch-fla­vored mouth­wash.”

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Churchillian (or Yogi Berra) Drift: How Quotations are Invented

Churchillian (or Yogi Berra) Drift: How Quotations are Invented

Drift it is….

Churchillian Drift is just the tick­et. I have been look­ing for a term to describe the numer­ous pot­ted, inac­cu­rate Churchill quotes. “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth puts its trousers on.” That is big right now on Twit­ter. “Suc­cess is not final, fail­ure is not fatal: it is the courage to con­tin­ue that counts.” Every­body uses that one repeatedly.

“If you’e going through hell, keep going.” No one knows who said that, but it wasn’t Churchill. Then there is: “If I were your hus­band, I’d drink it.”…

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