'Statue of Winston Churchill in straitjacket

WorldNetDaily: 'Winston Churchill' stuck in straitjacket:

"'We chose the former prime minister to show that mental illness should not be a barrier to leadership, historic significance and popularity,' Rethink's chief executive, Cliff Prior, told the Eastern Daily Press. 'If the general public's negative views on mental health held sway, Winston Churchill would never have been an MP, let alone prime minister.'"

It's true that many dismissed Churchill's warnings about a resurgent Germany during the early and mid-30s as the ravings of a madman. And, he is said to have had some notable eccentricities like strolling about his home in the nude. But, I doubt he was really mentally ill.

Still, though, the statement quoted here from the mental health advocacy agency that commissioned the controversial sculpture reminded me of something written by Paul Goodman in his introduction to - if memory serves - the paperback edition of Compulsory Mis-education, and the Community of Scholars (excellent long essays on the defects of, respectively, American public schools and universities).

Goodman mentioned that he was from Louisiana which he said was a state where neither ignorance nor insanity had been a bar to high public office; and, as a result, Louisiana had enjoyed unusually creative leadership.