Richard Geshke has it right: "Winston was a constant sipper. I never heard any stories of a drunk Churchill." The 1946 retort to Bessie Braddock, that she was ugly but he would be sober in the morning (adapted from W.C. Fields), was fired off because he was not drunk (leaving the House of Commons), just tired and wobbly. And Todd Ronnei, thanks for providing the link I was going to offer, since we dealt with this myth years ago: http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/myths/myths/he-was-an-alcohol-abuser
Two fine quips on this subject are Prof. Warren Kimball's: "Churchill was not an alcoholic--no alcoholic could drink that much"; and Sir John Colville's observation that what he started sipping early in the day was a trace of scotch diluted by a full glass of water: "scotch- flavored mouthwash." === To the recent appreciations of Churchill's career let us add that he was (which is not often recognized) a serious political theorist, who learned from experience and usually, as Manchester wrote, "improved as he went along." From Pres. Larry Arnn, Hillsdale College, in FINEST HOUR 144, "Riddles" department, coming up in early October (full text available: email me offline): "Churchill was a political thinker. He understood that the first division in politics is between the few rich and the many poor. He looked for a way to ameliorate that division, and to make the society stable. The United States provided a model for much of this. "Churchill was then pursuing justice, the arrangement of goods, offices, and honors according to the merit of those receiving them, and the interest of the State. He was profoundly for a liberal society, in which the economy is driven by private enterprise, and in which money is allowed to 'fructify,' as he quoted John Morley, in the pockets of people. The modern world, the world that requires freedom of religion and limited government, can abide no other kind of politics. But this kind of politics is demonstrably vulnerable to war. It is also vulnerable domestically. "If a disaffected majority, necessarily made up of the many who are poor, or relatively poor, expropriate the wealth of the few, it is a tragedy that will destroy justice in the state—even if the poor have a grievance against the rich. Churchill was trying to prevent that. How? There one must understand what he meant by 'Constitutionalism.' For Churchill, this is a very rich subject, rather like the writings of James Madison. "He saw the problem of bureaucracy, and of excess by the majority, very clearly from an early day. The problem is more mature now than it was in his time. That is why it is easy for some of Churchill’s solutions to look leftish from our modern vantage point." --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
