Leaning to the Left
Posted on 09/28/2004 3:56:12 AM PDT by billorites
THE Presidential election to be held this coming Nov. 2 will be one of extraordinary importance to the future of our nation. The outcome will determine whether this country will continue on the same path it has followed for the last 3½ years or whether it will return to a set of core domestic and foreign policy values that have been at the heart of what has made this country great.
Now more than ever, we voters will have to make cool judgments, unencumbered by habits of the past. Experts tell us that we tend to vote as our parents did or as we “always have.” We remained loyal to party labels. We cannot afford that luxury in the election of 2004. There are times when we must break with the past, and I believe this is one of them.
As son of a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration’s decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.
The fact is that today’s “Republican” Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar. To me, the word “Republican” has always been synonymous with the word “responsibility,” which has meant limiting our governmental obligations to those we can afford in human and financial terms. Today’s whopping budget deficit of some $440 billion does not meet that criterion.
Responsibility used to be observed in foreign affairs. That has meant respect for others. America, though recognized as the leader of the community of nations, has always acted as a part of it, not as a maverick separate from that community and at times insulting towards it. Leadership involves setting a direction and building consensus, not viewing other countries as practically devoid of significance. Recent developments indicate that the current Republican Party leadership has confused confident leadership with hubris and arrogance.
In the Middle East crisis of 1991, President George H.W. Bush marshaled world opinion through the United Nations before employing military force to free Kuwait from Saddam Hussein. Through negotiation he arranged for the action to be financed by all the industrialized nations, not just the United States. When Kuwait had been freed, President George H. W. Bush stayed within the United Nations mandate, aware of the dangers of occupying an entire nation.
Today many people are rightly concerned about our precious individual freedoms, our privacy, the basis of our democracy. Of course we must fight terrorism, but have we irresponsibly gone overboard in doing so? I wonder. In 1960, President Eisenhower told the Republican convention, “If ever we put any other value above (our) liberty, and above principle, we shall lose both.” I would appreciate hearing such warnings from the Republican Party of today.
The Republican Party I used to know placed heavy emphasis on fiscal responsibility, which included balancing the budget whenever the state of the economy allowed it to do so. The Eisenhower administration accomplished that difficult task three times during its eight years in office. It did not attain that remarkable achievement by cutting taxes for the rich. Republicans disliked taxes, of course, but the party accepted them as a necessary means of keep the nation’s financial structure sound.
The Republicans used to be deeply concerned for the middle class and small business. Today’s Republican leadership, while not solely accountable for the loss of American jobs, encourages it with its tax code and heads us in the direction of a society of very rich and very poor.
Sen. Kerry, in whom I am willing to place my trust, has demonstrated that he is courageous, sober, competent, and concerned with fighting the dangers associated with the widening socio-economic gap in this country. I will vote for him enthusiastically.
I celebrate, along with other Americans, the diversity of opinion in this country. But let it be based on careful thought. I urge everyone, Republicans and Democrats alike, to avoid voting for a ticket merely because it carries the label of the party of one’s parents or of our own ingrained habits.
John Eisenhower, son of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, served on the White House staff between October 1958 and the end of the Eisenhower administration. From 1961 to 1964 he assisted his father in writing “The White House Years,” his Presidential memoirs. He served as American ambassador to Belgium between 1969 and 1971. He is the author of nine books, largely on military subjects.
no tooth fairy!!
IIRC, the phrase is "...life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...".
President Bush has recognized what so many cannot - that the war on terror is not merely a war for liberty (a most worthy cause in and of itself), but it is a war for life. The islamofascists do not hate us because of our liberties - they hate us because we live.
Mr. Eisenhower may know the inside of the White House, but he does not understand the world that surrounds that important mansion.
Anybody but Bush -plus- "I trust Kerry on domestic affairs"
The greatest respect a nation can give for other peoples is to fight and die for their freedom.
John Eisenhower's father knew this.
I'm sure there is not a single veteran of World War 2 that if given the chance over again, knowing now what they didn't know then, would prefer to wait for the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Every soldier would demand to take proactive action against the axis of powers that brought so much death and misery to the world, half a century ago.
That is precisely what George W. Bush is doing.
He is the Winston Churchill of our time.
In fact, 50 years from now, historians will reluctantly speak of Bush and Churchill in the same voice.
However, of the two, it was only Bush that had the power as well as the foresight to take the battle to the enemy on his turf.
How different the world might have been if Churchill had had the same power.
This statement proves John Eisenhower is insane.
What Senator Kerry has demonstrated is a purported
Courage to wrongly testify before Congress
A Sober ability to shed his first wife for the much more wealthy second
A Competence at getting himself elected in the State of Messachusetts, and a Concern with the widening socio-economic gap, as a full fledged member of the Most Aristocratic, most wealthy sliver of our society.
Sorry you had to find out this way.
FR can be a cold, cold place...
"Sen. Kerry, in whom I am willing to place my trust, has demonstrated that he is courageous, sober, competent, and concerned with fighting the dangers associated with the widening socio-economic gap in this country. I will vote for him enthusiastically."
That fact that this jerk felt the need to add "sober" to his unimpressive list of Kerry's attributes tells me everything I need to know about him. Yikes is way more against Bush than he is for Kerry. Nice try but no cigar, now go crawl back under your rock please.
I can see Eisenhower avoiding "entanglements" in overseas adventures, perhaps like Desert Storm. However, I cannot imagine D.D. Eisenhower taking a passive role in the face of 9/11, with the prospect of those same terrorists being aided and abetted by certain nation states, who may be able to pass WMD's to them. There is no way D.D. Eisenhower would endorse his son's viewpoint, nor would he be proud of him using his father's grave to promote it.
SFS
Did he talk with David & Julie before publishing this?
Good grief, Major John! The cold war is over. Did you hear that the terrorists crashed a couple of jets into the World Trade Center? Yes, really!
Oh, and before you vote for John Kerry, would you please read _Unfit for Command_, or at least have someone read it to you?
He did sound a little clueless.
Yes I have noticed how fervently he has fought to diminish the gap twixt he and the rest of us. HYPOCRITE!! (Kerry) IDIOT!! (Eisenhower)
Well, Ron Reagan Jr, and now Eisenhower's son. Just proves presidential offspring can be as dumb as dirt. What does being the offspring of a president have anything to do with their opinion counting for squat.
Anybody But Kerry
Why I won't vote for John Kerry. Partial birth abortion, against my values. I don't believe anything he says, you can't bs a bs'er. Support of gay marriage, against my moral beliefs. I could go on and on.
You are certifiably insane.
Eisenhower could care less about anyone lower than him on the class scale. I get sick and tired of listening to these elitests pontificate about widening socio-economic gap in this country. Dang if you are so concerned then I have an idea. All of you mega rich, get together, pool your extra unwanted income,(you know the money you dont pay taxes on), and hand it out to those you feel are so disenfranchised.
As for “If ever we put any other value above (our) liberty, and above principle, we shall lose both.”
Maybe you ought to take your fathers advice. My guess is you probably never did.
I just sent this letter to the editor of the Manchester Union Leader:
"Living under the shadow of one's iconic parents can be a challenge. Some accept it and then absorb and reflect the greatness inherent to their heritage. Then again, some like Ron Reagan jr, turn petulant and seek to show their "independence" of thought by voting diametrically opposed to what their parents stood for.
Perhaps Mr. Eisenhower has been munching too much brie with the faaaaashionable set infiltrating into NH via the I-95 Ho Chi Minh Trail. Or maybe he wants to make a name for himself. In any case, his dad would never have advocated replacement of the Weimar Republic with the alternative, regardless of its perceived failings."
So, aside from having your old man keeping you employed, and an Ambassadorship for 2 years that was most likely a payoff for your old man, you have done nothing on your own merits. And, we are supposed take your opinions into account because........?
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