Throughout US history, can anyone name any left-leaning US Generals?

[Postman]

I can only think of one. And he never ran for public office. And judging by his writings, he didn't become left-leaning until after he retired from the military....USMC General Smedley Darlington Butler.

[JohnKleeb]

1. I cant prove it but I say General George C Marhall

Its inferance hones and like General Butler he too never ran for office.

[diplomats]

2. I don't know if George Marshall was left-leaning

but he served as Truman's secretary of state, and the Marshall Plan was brilliant.

[JohnKleeb]

5. yes youre right

I said I had no proof. Oh I know one, General James Weaver, he ran as a populist in 1872 :evilgrin:

[trotsky]

3. Maybe Eisenhower?

Sure, he was a Republican. But this was back before the "Southern Strategy," when Republicans actually had quite a few liberals in their ranks. Plus he warned us about the military-industrial complex, and he's got that quote about how every dollar spent on bombs is one less dollar to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Sounds pretty left-leaning to me.

ON EDIT: Corrected typo.

[RichM]

12. Good gosh, NO. The points you make here do indicate that Ike wasn't

a complete reactionary, but they do not REMOTELY mean he was "left leaning." Republicans did NOT have "quite a few liberals" in their ranks; they hardly had any at all. Failure to be a rightwing zealot isn't the same thing as being "left leaning."

It's true that Ike wasn't a RW zealot, but let's not get carried away. He didn't say a word in opposition to McCarthy, for example. He didn't like McCarthy, but he never publicly denounced him. He also went along with MANY CIA overthrows of democratically-elected governments - Iran & Guatemala among them. He had Lumumba murdered in the Congo.

As US presidents go, Ike was relatively decent. However, this only means "decent" in comparison to a rather unsavory lot.

[diplomats]

15. Don't forget his appointment of Earl Warren as chief justice

of SCOTUS. (Yes, I know he said he later regretted it, but I'm going by his actions.)

[coda]

21. Ike didn't want Warren as Chief Justice

He did promise him "the first SC position that became available" as a political favor for his help (major help according to Ike) to ace the Repub nomination in '52.

As "luck" would have it, it was the Chief Justice that died and Warren, reportedly made it known to Ike that "he promised the first vacancy and a promise is a promise".

Warren was also more conservative at that point, but it is a well known fact that he couldn't stand Nixon and had warned others of Nixon's dishonesty during the pubbie Convention of '52. His belief (well-founded) that Nixon cost him the nomination was never forgotten.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

24. Ike was as liberal as FDR, Truman, or LBJ

[ixion]

4. General Disarray

just kidding... :silly:

[Brian Sweat]

6. McCarthur was a life long Democrat

I don't know if that makes him left leaning. Many Democrats were a bit conservative back then.

[charlie]

11. Conservative enough

to back Republican Robert Taft for president.

[RichM]

13. MacArthur "left-leaning?" OMG, don't make me laugh. He was to the right

of Napoleon. He wanted to pre-emptively nuke China, FCOL.

He ALSO didn't accept the fundamental principle that a US military commander is subordinate to the elected civilian leadership (ie, the "president"). This of course is what got his ass canned by HST.

[Character Assassin]

7. Well, most generals aren't really written about, so they just 'fade away'

Without anyone being the wiser of their leanings one way or another.

[Snow]

14. Exactly - I have a friend who is a majot general, ret (age 84),

who was in the Army Rangers - and he's a very left-leaner. But nobody's ever heard of him, I'm sure.

[JohnKleeb]

17. was he on Omaha on D-Day

Thats interesting snow though.

[Snow]

22. Dunno - he would've been pretty young then, but it's possible...

my daughter would know; she's always IM-ing with him. Poor slob's got some health problems - mostly being 85 - and the feds have been cutting his health benefits, so now it looks like he may have to sell his ranch, which he really loves and was going to give to hs grand daughter, just to pay his stupid med bills.....

[Seneca]

8. ideology is not a fixed barometer

It is dicey to use contemporary ideological yardsticks and apply them to past historical figures. People don't live their lives, nor construct their personal ethical and moral codes, on rigid and often phony left-right constructs. That kind of thinking is as artificially dichotomous as what our adversaries such as Rush or Bush purvey.

Did some generals of the past have a conscience that could overlap with that of a contemporary liberal? Yes. Grant, who was a young officer during the Mexican War, hated that war. It was as nearly as divisive as Vietnam in its time. He knew it was pure expansionism.

A more recent example of a 'liberal' general would be George Marshall. Even Eisenhower, to some extent, who put aside whatever personal qualms he had in the matter and sent troops to Little Rock to enforce desegregation.

Still, what this proves is not that some generals may have been "liberal", but they were unique human beings like the rest of us, with varying degrees of compassion, reason, and ethical considerations. Your premise is well-meaning, but flawed, based on the fact that definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" vary from person to person, and from era to era.

[GainesT1958]

9. I agree with George Marshall, and I'd go much further back to add..

Confederate General James Longstreet.

:wtf: , you say? A CONFEDERATE general? Yeah, right--No way?

Well...WAY!

After the Civil War, Gen. Longstreet felt that the South would only re-integrate effectively with the rest of the Union if the newly-freed slaves were given basic civil rights, and themselves integrated into the population, including in the same public schools and universities as white students. That's right, Longstreet favored civil rights, and he favored, yep, integration--in the late 1860s and 1870s!

That's one reason why there aren't statues of Gen. Longstreet among those century-old statues honoring "our Confederate War Dead" in most Southern cities and towns. Because Longstreet took a politically-unpopular--and undoubtedly progressive--stand in favor of civil rights, most other white Southerners of his time, and for many years afterward, despised him. And yet, he sought to do right by his people, and by his region. A brave, progressive stance, and a daring one, especially given it was at least 90 years AHEAD of its time!

B-)

[JohnKleeb]

19. Longstreet was despised by the southerners in the end

because he became a republican, friend of Grant, and criticized Lee. I liked Barringer's portryal of him in Gettysburg, I respect the character.

[HereSince1628]

10. Well, it depends on which leg's amputated...

Seriously, I am guessing that if left-right arguments were present, all the US revolutionary generals would have been considered to be on the left.

[Taxi Driver]

16. McClellan. The man who ran against Lincoln in '64 n/t

[JohnKleeb]

18. McClellan he was more conservative than Lincoln

[moondust]

20. I think Gen. Tommy Franks is a Democrat.

Or so it has been reported.

[fla nocount]

23. For his time and social milieu?

Robert E. Lee. Officer, gentleman, humanitarian and philosopher.
No flames, I qualified the period and the milieu.

[AP]

25. Geo. Washington seemed to have been very pro-democracy/anti-

oligarchy.