INSANNITY & STRAUSS

This afternoon Sean Hannity compared George Bush favorably to Winston Churchill, an appallingly ignorant remark. I then recalled that the (mostly) neo-conservative followers of Leo Strauss worship Churchill. As James Mann puts it (p.27),

"In particular, Strauss and his followers revered Winston Churchill; during the Reagan administration and for years afterward, Straussians in Washington convened on Churchill's birthday to sip brandy and smoke cigars. What attracted them to Churchill was his willingness to stand up to Hitler. In a eulogy of Churchill, Strauss wrote, 'The tyrant stood at the pinnacle of his power. The contrast between the indomitable and magnanimous statesman and the insane tyrant -- this spectacle in it clear simplicity was one of the greatest lessons which man can learn, at any time."

In a footnote on page 380, Mann also notes that Wolfowitz attended some of these reunions. "including one in 2003." The connection to Hannity isn't Hannity's academic past, of which there is little, but it is his willingness to shill for the neo-cons. In his warped mind, Bush facing down the Islamist threat is nearly the same as Churchill facing down the Nazi threat.