Did You Hear That?

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En route to the library just now, I heard Rush take a call from Jonathan (or maybe Duncan? I heard Jonathan but googled this) Sandys, Churchill's great-grandson. He (Sandys) was absolutely livid about Bill Buckley's recent sour comments about Bush, arguing emphatically that Bush is the spiritual heir of his great-grandfather. It was a terrific call. I hope Rush puts it up here later.

UPDATE: Jonathan it is. Here (for awhile anyway) is the transcript. Biggest chunk, after a bit of chat about how bad our papers are here:

You've got terrible papers here like the New York Times. I mean, that is just disgraceful what they did, revealing that information. You know, you've got some really bad newspapers here, and but for your show and but for other shows and other internet feeds like NewsMax and things. I don't think you'd actually... There wouldn't be any fair press, but what I want you to respond to is Buckley's comment about the legacy that George Bush is going to leave his successor. In my opinion, George Bush has acted more like Churchill than previous presidents before him, purely and simply because at the time when Bush was threatened, when 9/11 happened, he acted immediately. It was, "We're going to go to war. We're going to fight the war on terrorism. We're going to actually solve this problem," and it's the same thing that Churchill wanted to do in the thirties but everybody was so hung up on the appeasement idea. Chamberlain wanted this. He didn't want to go to the war, and Hitler was promising all the way through. "We'll do this if you promise not to go to war with us. We won't invade Czechoslovakia. We won't do this; we don't do that," et cetera, et cetera, and all of England was falling for this, and saying, "Okay, fine. Yep. No problem. We'll do it."

Well, Churchill, who didn't really give a damn about diplomacy, just wanted to get the job done, said, "Look, Hitler is doing this." George Bush has done exactly the same thing, which Clinton should have done. He stood up, he said, look, these are terrorists, these are problems. These people are going to build up and cause us big problems. If they haven't got weapons of mass destruction now, they will do at some stage. We need to do something about them now. So I think the legacy that George Bush is going to leave his successor is one of great strength in America, maybe not financially because wars cost money, but certainly a great strength because you guys won't take any more.


And then a little more, just for the record since the link will disappear. Rush asks about public perception of Churchill and the war effort:
people were pretty much behind idea but it was the government that didn't want to do it and the government wasn't feeding the correct information. They were holding back the important documents saying, "Look, Germany is re-arming here, and Germany is re-arming there," and it was being kept back by people like Neville Chamberlain and Stan Baldwin because they didn't want to face the issue -- and so they were holding this information back, and it was but for people who approached my great-grandfather and said to him, "Look, Winston, this is what's happening, these are the actual facts and figures," and then Churchill would stand up in parliament and say, "Look, this is what the government is suppressing." Slowly but surely people started to turn around, the general public started to turn around and accept this war may well happen, but still he was unpopular, still he remained unpopular within his own party, and George Bush has done exactly the same. President Bush is not a diplomat. He's never wanted to be a diplomat. He just wants to get the job done. He wants to protect Americans. He loves America. He is an American, and he wants to protect them.
Unlike the British Prime Minister Tony Blair who wants to win every election possible, okay, George Bush gives a damn about America, and if anybody says that he doesn't, they're wrong. I may not have met George Bush, but I can certainly hear from his speeches, I certainly see from his actions, the man is honest, and the man is decent, and he's doing a good job.


Take that, Buckley! More.