MSNBC's Chris Matthews is featured in a new "Lean Forward" promo spot quoting his "hero" Winston Churchill as having asked "Then what are we fighting for?" when his finance minister suggested that the government's budget for the arts would have to cut to aid Britain's war effort. Matthews used that story as a warning to conservatives that the nation's dire financial straits are no excuse for cutting federal spending on the arts.
But alas, it seems the story is poppycock, as Churchill historian Richard Langworth noted in a March 2009 blog post.