James Dobson has been a critical leader among the religious right for some years now and he has all the subtlety of a chain saw. His organization, Focus on the Family, and its offshoots, do more to spread the conservative Christian creed than any other and have since the Moral Majority folded shop in the late 1980s. Indeed, when someone asked Jerry Falwell who would carry on the torch of the Moral Majority, he did not point to fellow minister Pat Robertson but to the layman Dobson.
Dobson has an essay comparing Winston Churchill to Barack Obama. It is, well, silly. Not just because such comparisons require a greater degree of historical understanding than Dobson seems to exhibit, but because he pulls out a few proof texts from among Churchill's many writings to prove his points. He also seems unaware that Churchill was wrong about virtually every political issue he ever engaged, from Ireland to India - except of course, the one issue that was literally vital for the survival of Western Civilization. I admire Churchill's leadership during World War II (how can one not?)and have read his war memoirs a half dozen times, as much for the skill of his prose as for the story his tells. His two volume Life of Marlborough, while steeped in a Whiggish interpretation of British history and a slavish devotion to his ancestor, is nonetheless a great read. His History of the English Speaking Peoples is a joy to read as well, even though it, too, suffers from its Whiggish bias.
Dobson is free to promote his views, but he should leave Sir Winston out of it.
h/t to Right Wing Watch.
