To some people, Winston Churchill represents the image of
the leader who grabbed the reigns of power at a time when Great Britain had
given hope it can escape the Nazi onslaught – and saved the day by turning the
spirit of the people around, replacing their sense of hopelessness with the
sense that they can triumph over the enemy by trying harder to defeat it on the
ground, in the air and on the sea.
In America, William Kristol of the Weekly Standard, is one
of those who bask not only in the larger than life image of Churchill but in
the exaggerated version of it; the one in which Churchill is endowed with the
magical powers of the speech – powers that are not much different from what the
witches and the warlocks acquire when they recite incantations from the book of
secrets.
What happens at times when a matter becomes compelling in
the eyes of people like Kristol – while it is not in the eyes of others – is
that they view their leaders as being incapable of rising to the level of the
Churchill they hold in their imagination. This is when they begin to think of
themselves as harboring the resurrected spirit of Churchill; also believe as
being personally charged with the task of saving the situation that's consuming
them, thus save the world by snatching a victory from the jaws of defeat … so
to speak.
You will get a flavor of this psychodrama when you read the
article that came under the title: “Fait Non-Accompli,” written by William
Kristol and published in the online edition of the Weekly Standard on July 24,
2015.
The first thing that hits you as odd is the realization that
this guy's rhetoric is no Churchillian rhetoric by any stretch of the
imagination. Would Winston Churchill have uttered something like this: “The Iran
deal turns out to be so no good, so very bad, so awfully ugly, that there is a
chance – an outside chance – that a congressional process...”? No, he would
not. But that does not matter at this time because Kristol thinks he can
encourage the people of the Congress to reject the deal, thus save the world
from those awful Iranians.
What the man must do first, is tell the readers how strong
the enemy is. But be careful, dear reader, because he is not now speaking of
the Iranians who are the enemy out there. Rather, he is speaking of the enemy
within – the Iran
enablers that created the situation he is trying to reverse. Here is how he
describes that situation:
“The administration is pulling out all stops. The left is
mobilizing. Pressure is being applied.” But how does he reverse that? He does
it by the power of incantation. Look how melodious that sounds: “But what's
striking is how many congressional Democrats are balking. Serious Democrats
look at the deal … and can't quite believe the horror the administration is
asking them to approve … The public can't quite believe it either.”
To buttress that last point, he invokes the magic of
numerology and plays it to the hilt. In modern parlance, this is called
statistics. But like the saying goes: “While figures don't lie, liars can
figure,” and so he figured a way to say there is hope in a poll that was
conducted not long ago. Here is how it went: “The poll had those Americans who
knew something about the deal – a striking high 79 percent of the public – disapproving
48 to 38 percent.” Given that the Americans are notorious for pretending to
know – if asked – that (the dead and buried) Abraham Lincoln will go to Phoenix tomorrow where he
will give a speech, the poll takers or Kristol must explain what they mean by
“those Americans who knew something.” Who are these Americans? What is the
“thing” they knew?
Based on this, Kristol uses several paragraphs to urge
members of the Democratic Party to break with their President, and vote to
reject the Iran
deal without telling them what will happen next. That's because he is a Jew –
at least half a Jew – and Jews do not think of the consequences of what they do;
the things they consider to be in their interest at this time.
To succeed, he performs the symbolic gesture of bestowing on
the Democrats the spirit of Churchill. Look how majestically he does that:
“While Churchill is more a hero to Republicans than to democrats, there is
bipartisan admiration for his lonely fight against appeasement. That fight was
against a government of his own party. So it is congressional Democrats who
have a chance to be Churchillian.”