U.S. needs a leader like Churchill [& the whole Western]

By David Gergen, CNN Senior Political Analyst

(CNN) -- Before returning to the States this weekend, I and others in my family spent enthralled hours at the Churchill War Rooms in London, along with the new museum in his honor next door. Now, there was a leader! There was a man whose example shouts out to us now in our hour of trouble.

On both sides of the Atlantic, the turmoil of this past week has sparked cries for those in political power to step up and for God's sake, lead. Fears are spreading across Europe as well as the U.S. that not only are our economies teetering but our politicians are ineffectual.

In their summit a short while ago, leaders of European democracies promised they had fixed the problems of their weakest player, Greece. Instead, their solution was so timid that fears of default have spread to Italy and Spain, the third and fourth largest economies in the euro zone. In the U.S., President Obama and Congressional leaders assured us that their budget deal would put us on a safe path. Instead, markets plunged and Standard & Poors stripped our county of its AAA credit rating for the first time ever.

It's not that you don't have the economic capacity to pay your bills, said S&P; we're just not sure you have the political capacity to pay them. One can well object to the decision, as the White House has, but the damage is done in international eyes. Gloom is thick across the waters.

Winston Churchill would have rejected this pessimism in an instant. He was offered the prime ministership in May, 1940, when Hitler had marched across much of Europe and chased British troops off the mainland. Many of Britain' older political leaders were so despondent they wanted to capitulate to Hitler, and had signed a peace treaty. 

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