In Praise of Winston Churchill

Via Powerline, I learn that today is the 130th anniversary of the birth of Winston Churchill. It is something of an embarrassment that this isn't a national holiday the world over. Perhaps we could append it to Thanksgiving, because we should all be grateful that by the force of his indomitable will (and, at times, it seemed, his will alone) Western civilization was saved from the scourge of fascism.

One of the most fascinating accounts of his life that I have "read" (listened to the audio CD on a few roadtrips, actually) was Jon Meacham's Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship. I had always understood Churchill to have been a rock, personifying coolness under pressure as the Nazis pounded England early in the war. The book reveals more of human dimension to Churchill, particularly in the way that the friendship between the two men formed at a personal level and how it evolved as the war drew to a close and the Soviet Union emerged as the new threat to the West.