On today’s joint press conference between the British PM David Cameron and President Barack Obama one reporter asked about why the bust of Winston Churchill was returned.
Obama answered that he loved Winston Churchill, but he appeared to admit that he had been involved in the decision to remove a Churchill bust from the Oval Office when he became president. It was more important to have a bust of Martin Luther King there, he said.
That is not exactly how it happened. Obama replaced the bust of Winston Churchill with a New Yorker Magazine cover of him walking on water. That was to him a more fitting image to have on display in the Oval Office.
Decisions have consequences. This is “A Period of Consequences.” The phrase is taken from a speech in the House of Commons in late 1936 in which Winston
Churchill warned: “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”
The British economist and businessman Josiah Charles Stamp is said to have remarked, “It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.”
The Limerick:
Obama shows signs that fer sure he can’t hack it.
Our country: The consequence starts to attack it.
But Winston was right,
We must face the fight.
On Churchill’s old bust Barry blurted: Take back it!
Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment. 