Dwight Eisenhower was the last great president this country had as

[KlatooBNikto]

far as keeping us away from wars and keeping the warmongers in check. He was one of my genuine heroes leading us to victory against the Nazis in Europe. His first hand experience with war, the unfulfilled promises of his generals, his deep empathy for the fighting men under his command, all made him allergic to big talk about the potential of super duper weapons systems.Kennedy ,although a novice at this game learnt quickly when the Bay of Pigs fiasco taught him not to listen to promises made by fools like his generals.We have to remember that Bush Sr.'s involvement with the Cuban armada that set sail for Cuba.

Those people are in full control now having wrecked our country from one end to another.They profess to belong to the Party of Ike. This is not a party Ike would recognize anymore.

[THUNDER HANDS]

1. nobody from that era would recognize anyone anymore

Ike could be revived from the dead today, read both party platforms, watch a half hour of C-SPAN...

...and ask to be dead again.

[KlatooBNikto]

2. Good point.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[KlatooBNikto]

6. Hello and Good Bye!

[China_cat]

3. I think Ike

was the last decent Republican. And he presided over the HUAC atrocities committed by MacCarthy, pushed through 'under god' in the pledge and allowed 'in god we trust' to push 'e pluribus unum' off our currency.

[KlatooBNikto]

4. His decency came from being a true leader who led by example.

His soldiers always believed that Ike would not ask them to do anything he wouldn't do himself or saw such a great need in battle he had to assume some risk.That empathy for his people was Ike's secret.

In our day of empty suits posing as leaders, we have the other extreme.The rhetoric of leadership rings loud while the actions are either the opposite of what they profess or are simply nonexistent.

[Enraged_Ape]

23. Eisenhower detested McCarthy and his minions

He was, IIRC, the first President to invoke "executive privilege" to keep McCarthy from expanding his bogus investigation into the cabinet and joint chiefs. This took all of the wind out of McCarthy's sails and forced him to overplay his hand on wild speculation and false accusations, thus leading to his eventual downfall.

Eisenhower was one of the most levelheaded, skeptical Presidents this nation has ever had. You have the 1950s U.S. Senate, the Congress, and all of McCarthy's hysterical whack jobs across the country, fueled by the media, to thank for "In God We Trust", "One Nation Under God", and the like.

[China_cat]

27. But he was president

and he could have stopped it, denounced it at the very least and he didn't have to sign the legislation allowing the god squad to co-opt the money.

And he DID pick Nixon for a vp.

[snippy]

7. Eisenhower also was the last fiscally responsible republican president.

Since 1960 around $4 trillion has been added to the publicly held portion of the national debt. Republican presidents have been responsible (with the help of Congress) for about 90% of that total. In that time the annual deficit has exceeded 3% of GDP 14 times. Every single time was under a republican president.

[sherilocks]

8. I don't recall Eisenhower opposing Joe McCarthy

For those whose lives were destroyed during the Eisenhower administration, I don't think they view him in the same light. He was at best, better than Bush. He may have been a great general, but a great president not.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

9. i agree Ike was not a great president ...he made a better general

[papau]

11. As GOP go, he had more ethics than most - albeit his slush fund that

the insurance and car folk gave him while he was still a General to finance his politics (folks like the Omsteads he appoint to the Dept of Commerce) and his looking the other way with Joe Mc - are black marks.

But he was not like the current crop of GOP.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

13. exactly what i wanted to say...thanks for articulating

:hi:

[AP]

19. Wasn't there some scandal involving his farm in PA??

I thought I read somewhere that the Democrats wanted to use the scandal in an election after Ike left office as an example of how Republicans behave (it was something Ike did while he was president and afterwards), but they thought the public would punish Democrats for pointing it out.

[PATRICK]

10. the word "great"

like "patriotism" is a heady refuge for great criminal exploits.
The word like so many of the proper nouns it leads- sucks greatly.

Eisenhower's sole proficiency as a military leader didn't save him from being as much a domestic dupe as Ulysses Grant, whose "greatness" as President was obscured by his drinking and lack of rabid Republican support.

Good thing the mindless loyalty of the elctorate could rely on his military proficiency. At least we survived.

[Bush was AWOL]

12. Ike was more of a moderate than a Republican

I've always heard that he didn't have a strong ideology before running, and was unsure of whether he should run as a Democrat or a Republican.

[mopinko]

14. i dunno, but

he gave this speech, and if we had listened, we would live on a peaceful, and prosperous planet right now-
Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hope of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than thirty cities. It is two electric plants, each serving a town of sixty thousand population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than eight thousand people. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging upon a cross of iron.... aspire to this: the lifting, from the backs and from the hearts of men, of their burden of arms and fears - so that they may find before them a golden age of freedom and of peace.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, "The Chance for Peace," April 1953
Speech writers Emmet John Hughes and C. D. Jackson

[datasuspect]

15. Dwight David Eisenhower Intersate Highway System

although part of the death knell for small town america, still a good idea.

[MadHound]

16. LOL friend, Eisenhower had good press, that's all

He got us involved in our fair share of imperial adventure, some that came back and bit us later. He just had a better press that swept it all under the rug.

He oversaw part of the Korean War(though he did bring it to a close), established the Shah of Iran by force, sent troops to Lebanon, landed Marines in Egypt when that country nationalized the Suez Canal, initiated imperial adventures in various Central America countries(Guatemala, Nicuraqua) and Cuba. In Asia, he sent the Marines in to Formosa, and started the Vietnam conflict by deploying thousands of so called "advisors" into the region, destablizing the entire area, including Laos and Cambodia, in addition to Vietnam(he was the originator of the Dominoe Theory of SE Asia, a concept the in the end, killed millions of people in a senseless conflict)

He also ratcheted up the Cold War, flying secret, illegal flights over the Soviet Union, cranking up the arms race, and allowing the CIA free reign to pull off various stunts worldwide.

Don't give Eisenhower a free ride, he was just as much a war hawk as other presidents. He just managed to hide it behind a facade of bonhomme and the feel good capital that the US had built up with the rest of the world by our influence in WWII. He also had the good sense to court the press and public so that they would be more forgiving of his excesses.

[papau]

20. Well said - the killing of the peace and elections in 54 in Vietnam is

one item that cost 60,000 US lives -

All because Dulle and Ike refused to accept an election that would elect Ho.

[Xipe Totec]

17. Didn't Ike Coin the Term Military-Industrial Complex?

And didn't he warn us to beware of it?

I STILL like Ike.

[Justitia]

21. This is what I admire about Ike - he EVOLVED as a president

and the contrast between an Eisenhower and the current occupant of 1600 Penn Ave couldn't be more stark in this frame.

Yes, Ike had his faults as all presidents have, but he also had a continually self-examining mind that would not allow him to self-excuse as executive privilege.

Ike was a president that could not lie to himself, could not look away from the direct consequences of his actions and his sense of responsibility weighed heavily on him (as it should). As Shakespeare wrote "Heavy lies the head that wears the crown", and Ike was an excellent example of this.

Things about Eisenhower that really stand out to me:

An excellent military leader that put himself in as much physical peril as the men he asked to go (and this ran in the family - remember his father volunteering to go to the front lines in D-Day at like 72 yrs old???).

A comprehensive understanding of the costs of war - not only militarily but economically and spiritually collective as a country.

A firm understanding and unshakable belief that FINANCIAL DISCIPLINE was the KEY to SOCIAL JUSTICE. As a Republican, this is RARE, RARE, RARE. Something I greatly admire about him and his willingness to stand up to his own party in his conviction. To him, like most of us here, this was a matter of COMMON SENSE and what was in the best interest of his country as a whole.

In this last election, does anyone remember reading the op-ed piece sent by his son to the The Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News on September 29? He was supporting Kerry for president,as the Democratic party ideals are what most closely resembles the values of his father? It was very moving and quite an indictment of how far the Repub party has fallen since Ike.

An evolving president - what a novelty these days...

[kskiska]

18. Francis Gary Powers

Ike was caught in a big lie when he denied that the US was using U-2 spy planes over the USSR. Then Khruschev produced Powers, who was shot down while piloting one of those U-2s. (Powers was supposed to have swallowed his cyanide capsule, but didn't.) It was a very humiliating episode, as I remember.

[mark414]

22. he was the last Republican

to feel a Christian obligation towards helping the poor

if we had to have any Republicans around, I'd want Republicans like Ike (and Teddy R, for that matter)

and on edit: i thought that was his son who wrote that op-ed piece?

[Justitia]

24. oops - you may be right, I need to look it up and edit....

that's what I get for typing ahead of myself.

[chicagiana]

29. Teddy Roosevelt would NOT be a Republican today ...

Teddy was a conservationist and a progressive. His leaving office marked the first point of a long flip/flop period between the party of Lincoln and the Democrats.

The Republicans left their progressive roots and became the party of the rich. At the same time, the Democrats ALSO had very little progressives and also seemingly represented the rich (West vs East). It would take a Great Depression for the Democrats to find a purpose.

It kinda reminds me of today. The Democrats have all but abandoned the "class war". They've thrown in the towel and become servants of the corporate money peddlers. They've become "Republican Light".

I hope it won't take yet another depression for the Democrats to realize that their fiscal policy is too regressive.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

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[immoderate]

26. West Point grad. So no Skull and Bones.

Got anything else to support your position?

I'm not a great Eisenhower admirer, but I think he was a decent man in complex times. What prompts your response?

On edit: Whoops, suddenly you're not there. That was quick.

--IMM

[chicagiana]

28. Vietnam ...

Which wars did he keep us from????

Eisenhower STARTED Vietnam. Kennedy and LBJ escalated it.

[FeelinGarfunkelly]

30. and his commitment to civil rights.. jeepers what a leader

/sarcasm

and everyone reaps praises on the interstate system. Okay, fine, I can get from A to B, but what about the towns on roads like Route 66? Just leave 'em behind, I guess.. That's why I try to take the business route thru small towns, because who knows what you'll find.

Ike can stay as general for all I care. I don't think generals, generally speaking (ha!) make good presidents. That's the one concern I had about Clark.