A choice between Churchill and Chamberlain appears to resonate with the House Speaker

Your far-flung correspondent Ed Palm here once again with two topics for the price of one.

Johnson the Bold. Who’s afraid of Marjorie Taylor Greene? Not Speaker of the House Mike Johnson! He defied Greene’s motion-to-vacate threat by bringing to the floor a bill that provides $61 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine. Wonder of wonders! It passed by a vote of 311 to 112. It has since cleared the Senate and been signed into law by President Biden.

And horror of horrors — according to Greene — Johnson got the bill through by making deals with Democrats. A Republican Speaker of the House reaching across the aisle and evincing a degree of selfless moral courage? We can’t have that! Or so Greene and other members of the so-called Freedom Caucus think.

Johnson has risen in my estimation. He has proven to be educable. He was initially opposed to supporting Ukraine, but a series of high-level intelligence briefings reportedly brought him around to the cold hard truth. “History,” Mark Twain is reported to have said, “doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” I realize I’ve fallen back on this before, but it bears repeating. I think history echoes. We’re hearing the echoes of 1939. Appeasement didn’t work then. It won’t now. Putin is a ruthless dictator who has to be stopped.

No less than former ambassador to the Soviet Union Michael McFaul believes Putin would not stop with Ukraine. McFaul, however, is a realist. Last March, in a conversation with former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel at the University of Chicago, McFaul said a complete victory for either side is not the way the war has to end. McFaul believes our continuing support will make Putin realize he could lose, and that would bring him to the negotiating table. (Tori Lee, uchicago news, March 31, 2023).

Despite our vacillation, Ukraine remains steadfast. Putin greatly underestimated the willingness of the Ukrainian people to fight to remain independent. That was another point McFaul made in that University of Chicago discussion. To paraphrase what I heard another pundit say recently, America must now choose between emulating Chamberlain or Churchill. The historical significance of those names, I fear, is lost on most Americans today. But not on Mike Johnson, I assume.

Still, while Johnson is educable, he does remain loyal to Donald Trump. Johnson is clearly an intelligent man, and he is said to be a devout Christian. Here’s hoping he will soon see the light and disavow his fealty to Trump — a man who makes a mockery of everything Johnson as a Christian professes to stand for.

As for Greene’s motion to vacate, should it come to pass, I predict Democrats will vote to save Johnson’s job. Could good old-fashioned bipartisanship be making a comeback? Too much to hope for? We’ll see.

Liberty Revisited. Readers may recall that I recently devoted a column to the $14 million fine the Department of Education levied against Liberty University for Clery Act violations. (“The law’s critical look at the ‘Liberty Way’,” Mar. 17) Anyone interested in gaining another perspective on Liberty and its problems might call up an in-depth 14-page article by Kate Andrews published in the March 28 issue of “Virginia Business.”

Whatever else it is, Liberty University is a business, and an important one. Liberty University Provost Scott Hicks emphatically made that clear to Andrews. Liberty is the economic mainstay of greater Lynchburg, Virginia. It employs 8,000 local people and boasts nearly 15,000 resident students who patronize local businesses. Their combined contribution to the prosperity of the region would be greatly missed.

Along the way, Andrews includes some grousing about alleged “factual errors” in the DOE report, but said mistakes are not identified in her article. Still, I recommend it to anyone interested in a fair and balanced view of how Liberty ran afoul of the Department of Education and what it’s doing to make amends. The article is available online at www.Virginiabusiness.com/byline/kate-andrews.

Any factual errors in the DOE report, it seems to me, could not be as damaging as what an influential 2018 graduate, Dustin Wahl, told Andrews. If you recall from my column, in an interview with a local TV station anchor, Liberty’s new president, Dondi Costin, indicated the university would henceforth steer clear of partisan politics. Wahl, who had founded an alumni group advocating reforms--including the ouster of Jerry Falwell Jr.--looks down on students who come to Liberty merely for a Christian education. He is heartened to find the university attracting more students from “Trump Country . . . who don’t care what the Department of Education says.”

Liberty University prides itself on turning out “champions for Christ.” But are they also turning out champions for Trump? One is clearly the antithesis of the other. If I were Liberty’s president, I would be publicly gainsaying alumnus Dustin Wahl.

Contact Ed Palm at majorpalm@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Choice between Churchill and Chamberlain resonates with House Speaker