Some people are making a big deal over celebrating Ronnie Raygun’s centennial. I realize that he’s a hero to conservatives, so they’re as entitled to him as liberals are to JFK. Each of those two presidents represents a kind of ideal, even though each has aspects (one a philanderer, the other a bumbler) that don’t hold up under close scrutiny.
Problem is, when you go back and look at post-WWII presidents, each of them has detractors with legitimate gripes. Only Eisenhower seems to emerge relatively unscathed. You just don’t mess with a war hero. Or at least (sorry, McCain) one of that stature.
It’s difficult to disassociate Ike from the era with which his name is linked. After all, it was a time of rampant cold war paranoia, overzealous red baiting, Jim Crow, and sanctimonious public morality (such as in response to nascent rock ’n roll). The only real dissidents were beatniks, and they pretty much kept to themselves. But Eisenhower himself had an air of authority and at least was savvy enough to recognize the problems coming with the “military industrial complex.”
Ike was a guy that a majority of Americans seemed to respect, and just consider how respect went out the window after he left the White House....
Problem is, when you go back and look at post-WWII presidents, each of them has detractors with legitimate gripes. Only Eisenhower seems to emerge relatively unscathed. You just don’t mess with a war hero. Or at least (sorry, McCain) one of that stature.
It’s difficult to disassociate Ike from the era with which his name is linked. After all, it was a time of rampant cold war paranoia, overzealous red baiting, Jim Crow, and sanctimonious public morality (such as in response to nascent rock ’n roll). The only real dissidents were beatniks, and they pretty much kept to themselves. But Eisenhower himself had an air of authority and at least was savvy enough to recognize the problems coming with the “military industrial complex.”
Ike was a guy that a majority of Americans seemed to respect, and just consider how respect went out the window after he left the White House....
- Kennedy – blew the Bay of Pigs, was hated enough to be killed
- Johnson – mired us in Vietnam
- Nixon – yes, he was a crook
- Ford – a bumbler who pardoned a crook
- Carter – a wimp in a Cardigan who stranded the hostages
- Reagan – gave us voodoo economics and Contragate
- Bush I – mo’ voodoo, and stopped short in Iraq
- Clinton – victimized by the right for a loose zipper
- Bush II – an idiot
- Obama – victimized by racists and Islamophobes
What do all these guys have in common? They’re all politicians! I think America lost its shot for another Eisenhower when Colin Powell declined to seek the presidency – and we apparently have his wife to blame for that. (What would Mamie say?) Leaders with auctoritas are few and far between. Too bad Ross Perot didn’t have it.
So for those celebrating Reagan, all I can say is “party on” – with the knowledge that it’s pretty much limited to your party. You have to go back another 20+ years to find the last time we had a president for all Americans. Trouble is, it was an America we wouldn’t want to go back to.
So for those celebrating Reagan, all I can say is “party on” – with the knowledge that it’s pretty much limited to your party. You have to go back another 20+ years to find the last time we had a president for all Americans. Trouble is, it was an America we wouldn’t want to go back to.
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