Jeffrey Lord: Obama's Churchill Dilemma
Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com.
Osama bin Laden is dead....
As might be expected, it didn't take long for the media to start suggesting how the killing of bin Laden would help re-elect Obama in 2012, as with this Reuters story.
There was no mention of what might be called the Churchill Dilemma....
On May 8, 1945, after making a radio broadcast announcing the end of the European half of World War II -- the part of the war, obviously, that most impacted the people of Britain -- Churchill was whisked to Buckingham Palace....
Standing on the Palace balcony gazing out at the emotional scene Churchill would later recall the announcement of the Nazi surrender. It was an announcement that followed the suicide of Adolf Hitler by mere weeks, and served as what Churchill called "the signal for the greatest outburst of joy in the history of mankind." The crowds stretching out below Churchill that triumphant May day were every bit as rowdy as those seen for William and Kate the other day if not more so. They were, Churchill said, "tumultuous" in their rejoicing.
Yet a little over two months later, on July 26, the British people stunned the world by rejecting Churchill's bid for re-election. Winston Churchill, one of the first great wartime leaders to emerge in the successful war to defeat Adolf Hitler and a genuinely beloved hero, lost. Worse, for Churchill fans, he lost to one of history's more colorless Labour Party leaders, Clement Attlee....
No, the point here is not that Barack Obama has suddenly morphed into Winston Churchill. As if! In fact, to his credit, he stuck with the Bush policy on getting Osama bin Laden and perhaps even ratcheted it up here and there, as doubtless his more left-wing fans are suddenly realizing, to their discomfort.
The point is quite simple and factual.
Winning wars and killing the lead bad guy -- and World War II and Adolf Hitler were without doubt then and now the biggest war and the worst bad guy -- does not an election victory make. Voters -- in Britain in 1945 and in America in 2012 -- are more than capable of sifting the differences between a leader who has done one thing that pleases in the past, while not being up to snuff on something else now seen as more critical....