The Occasional Observer

Both grew up as underachievers in the shadow of prominent fathers and ancestors and then surpassed them in renown...

Neither Churchill nor McCain was ever liked much by his colleagues...

Fundamental to Churchill's worldview was the belief that priorities had to be rigidly ranked and that the supreme interests need to be vigorously and single-mindedly pursued. Chief among those interests was national security. McCain has suggested a similar approach...

It was Churchill's credibility, earned by staking out unpopular but prophetic positions, that led him to be embraced by his political nemesis Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain when war broke out in 1939, and then catapulted him to replace Chamberlain over war mismanagement in 1940...

It was McCain's unique national security credibility that similarly brought him back into the good graces of his more powerful political rival, President George W. Bush, and he can legitimately offer himself as a competent and effective wartime commander in chief...

McCain certainly has not achieved Churchill's heights, but he can legitimately claim to be the most Churchillian among the Republicans of his day. That not only offers hope for a possible McCain administration, especially during this time of war, but should also be encouraging to conservatives.