very good ... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Editor/Finest Hour" <[email protected]> To: "ChurchillChat" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 4:54:24 PM Subject: [ChurchillChat] Re: The King's Speech
(Revised by sender) WASHINGTON, JANUARY 25TH— A new film, The King's Speech (reviewed next issue) “is riddled with gross falsifications of history” according to Christopher Hitchens, writing in SLATE (www. slate.com/id/2282194/). The production, Hitchens says, whitewashes Churchill by painting WSC as an ally of George VI, who succeeded his brother, the egregious Nazi sympathizer Edward VIII, when in fact the “bombastic” Churchill stuck with Edward unto the end, at the expense of his political capital as an anti-appeaser. Once Edward abdicated, the Royal Family was rehabilitated: “Almost the entire moral capital of this rather odd little German dynasty is invested in the post-fabricated myth of its participation in ‘Britain's finest hour.’” We were all set to send SLATE a rebuttal to Hitchens’ characteristic rants, as over his Atlantic article in 2002 (FINEST HOUR 114, http://xrl.us/bif47u), which labeled Churchill “incompetent, boorish, drunk and mostly wrong.” But many readers of SLATE who responded on their website have already done so. If the film emphasizes Churchill’s instinctive support for the monarchy, however undeserving the monarch, its representation is accurate. “Mr. David Windsor” was indeed a regrettable character, and contrary to Hitchens wasn’t even controllable as Governor of The Bahamas, where some locals still recall the several kettles of fish left in his wake when he quit Nassau. But George VI was hardly alone in supporting Chamberlain and appeasement—a whole generation had been wasted in the last war. A more sensitive evaluation is the one by Alistair Cooke at the 1988 International Churchill Conference: “The British people would do anything to stop Hitler, except fight him. And if you had been there, ladies and gentlemen—if you had been alive and sentient and British in the 1930s—not one in ten of you would have backed Churchill.” One can only imagine what a 1930s Hitchens say about the “bombastic” Member for Woodford. Come to think of it, some did. King George VI’s deportment in World War II won him the lasting respect of his people and Churchill, eclipsing his mistaken beliefs before 1940. Churchill’s setback after defending Edward VIII was brief and insignificant; his comeback as a “Prophet of Truth” was soon back on track as events proved he’d been right all along. Gross falsifications of history? All we have here is the grossly iconoclastic Chris Hitchens, current personification of the Member of Parliament described by Arthur Balfour: “The hon. gentleman has said much that is trite and much that is true, but what’s true is trite, and what’s not trite is not true.” -- 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. -- 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.
