Obama and the Return of the Winston Churchill Bust

It had not even been close to a month after his inauguration, but the American president just could not wait; a bust of Winston Churchill that had been loaned to the White House by the British government during G.W. Bush's tenure was quietly packed and shipped back to London, apparently with no comment.

This one had been on my mind since it occurred but I had no outlet for expressing it until a couple of months ago. By February 15, 2009, the event had made it to the press. Obama was not interested in having Churchill’s representation in the Oval Office. His press team of course went through their gyrations to try to justify the return, which left Britain's diplomatic corps (no doubt pronounced as "corpse" by Obama as he did when speaking about a Navy Corpsman) embarrassed, probably hurt, and without words for a response. White House staff pretended to hold that since the bust had been a loan (often used in diplo-speak for gifts - did anyone really think that Britain ever wanted it back?) it had been G.W. Bush's responsibility to return it and that Obama was just getting his predecessor's work done. When that attempt fell flat, the media naturally gave Obama one their first of soon-to-be scores of free passes for nasty, jerky, or insufferably foolish moves or statements and promptly ignored the return and its effects in London.

Obama has not hidden the fact that he has an axe to grind against the civilization of the West. His father was a Kenyan. Apparently his grandfather was involved in the Mau Mau rebellion and subsequently captured and tortured by the colonial authorities - all this during the second Premiership of whom? - Winston Churchill! To paraphrase The British statesman while simultaneously putting words in Obama's mouth, "Having that bastard's bust in the Oval Office is something up with which I will not put".

The example of the American president in this case illustrates much of the utter abandonment of civility, honest-thinking, maturity, and basic common sense that we regularly see from the Left. Obama will not allow himself to admit that much of what the West accomplished was good for the world, that the fact that it was not perfect does not make it inherently bad, and most of all, that personal vendettas/past family sufferings simply have no place when you have an official position of authority. 

Churchill was a bridge both between the old British Empire and the new and even more obviously, between all nations that have legal, cultural, and linguistic roots with his country. His four-volume "A History of the English Speaking Peoples"  does a thorough and convincing job of arguing that so much links the US and the Commonwealth with the people and events of English/British history. His work leaves it plain and clear that the common foundations of these nations/peoples mandates cooperation and mutual assistance among and with each other.

The only part of the series in which I see him completely wrong is when he pins the blame for Union defeats early in the American Civil War on Lincoln. Churchill had a romantic notion of the Confederate leaders, something that he does not hide in his writings. He also acts as an apologist for incompetent Union Generals which leaves Lincoln as the fall guy to Churchill. The fact is that Lincoln displayed tremendous strategic insight in his comments and his correspondence with Union generals, both in encouraging decisive actions when Confederate armies where in danger of being enveloped and in insisting that US forces be deployed on multiple approaches deep into enemy territory to maximize the numerical advantages of the North.

Back to the return of the bust - The US and nations of the British Commonwealth have literally millions of people descended from the very people who suffered under misrule/malrule of Britain, including myself. These people are nevertheless fortunate to be living in a society that has foundations based on English Law. All those who enjoy benefits derived from this situation *traditionally have opportunities and rights that far surpass those of other nations. Almost every part of our daily lives are affected by the minutiae of British history, right down to that of the native Britons, Roman Legionaries, Saxon conquerors, and those who followed.

When coupling the above fact with that of the responsibility of one in public office to dispense with personal grievances (at least while he is in office), the return of the Churchill bust is seen for its atrocious, detestable, sickening, and utterly boorish motivations. Obama's qualities are those of a peasant who is ruled by a clannish hatred. He is like a spoiled, stuck-up, crude, and vengeful child who won't allow himself to be governed or even mildly influenced by rules of civility or the ethics of his [sic?]country.

* Note that in recent decades much of those freedoms have been removed from the citizens of those countries. The most notable have been the right of the individual to own weapons (firearms) and the right to free speech. The former has been largely removed almost across the board (Britain, Australia, Canada, South Africa). The loss of the latter occurred mostly in Britain. Those who protest the splintering of the nations population into groups with a Dark Ages-type of application of different laws to different peoples are routinely accused of hate speech and charged with breaches of law.