What Kind of Dog is He?

The old British Bulldog is no doubt the favourite source of quotation for the Bush government. I feel sorry for Ike, being so disrespected. When I come to consider when Winston Churchill is quoted, I do not feel so bad for Ike anymore. They seem to think that the best use of Churchillism is when they are back into a corner and have nothing else to offer. Witness Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation speech. He paraphrased Churchill’s opinion about his critics: “I have benefited greatly from criticism, and at no time have I suffered a lack thereof.” He compares himself to Churchill and thus put down his critics. Very smart, it seems. If we look closely though, the comparison is slightly off. He is no doubt thinking about the late Churchill, the greatest leader of the British, the victor of WWII. Unfortunately there is little comparable between Rumsfeld and that Churchill besides age—Churchill was in his 70’s as Rumsfeld is today. There is however a Churchill that is very much like Rumsfeld. When Churchill was 40, as the First Lord of the Admiralty, he designed and oversaw the great disaster that is the Dardanelles and Gallipolis. Like Rumsfeld, the young Churchill achieved nothing while losing hundred of thousands of lives on the battlefield. And like Rumsfeld, Churchill was kicked out of office in complete disgrace. If there were no WWII and no failure of Chamberlain’s policies, he would have ended his life as a sad, grumpy voice from the backbench that everyone ignored. He was doubly lucky that he made his disastrous mistake when he was young. Rumsfeld has no such luck. He is old, there will not be a come back to prove himself again. Most people, including Rumsfeld forgot about the early failures of Churchill and want to be like the late Churchill. What turned the dandy into a bulldog was the horror of war and the realization that war is dirty, messy and extremely costly. When Churchill took office in 1940, he offered no grand plan but “blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” Rumsfeld, and the like, did not learn this lesson and thus they are like the young Churchill--the dandy failure, poodles rather then bulldogs. And that is why his critics are just in hounding him.