America Needs Another Ike

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"Censorship, in my opinion, is a stupid and shallow way of approaching the solution to any problem. Though sometimes necessary, as witness a professional and technical secret that may have a bearing upon the welfare and very safety of this country, we should be very careful in the way we apply it, because in censorship always lurks the very great danger of working to the disadvantage of the American nation."

Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 24, 1950

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As a student of history, I tend to believe that Dwight Eisenhower could not have been elected president in the modern incarnation of a world that was only beginning to develop when he served as America's commander–in–chief.

Presidents tend to be products of their times, not the other way around. Even if they enter the presidency with a specific agenda, circumstances often force them to change direction in ways they never anticipated. Presidents aren't prophets, and few probably would have chosen the crises they had to face.

But they are also influenced by the technology that exists when they live and serve. Some presidents have been slower than others to embrace emerging technology, and some have been ill–equipped to do so. Most presidents have been the first presidents to do something, but history always remembers things like:

• the first president to be photographed (John Quincy Adams — although he wasn't president when the photograph was taken);
• the first president to ride in a train (Andrew Jackson);
• the first president to have a telephone installed in the White House (Rutherford B. Hayes);
• the first president to ride in a submarine and an airplane (Theodore Roosevelt in both instances);
• the first president to own an automobile (William Howard Taft);
• the first president to give a radio broadcast from the White House (Calvin Coolidge), and
• the first president to appear on television (Franklin D. Roosevelt).

In a more recent presidential first, Bill Clinton was the first president to send an email, but apparently — and contrary to what his wife has said — he hasn't made any use of email in his post–presidential years.

Eisenhower, who was born 125 years ago next Wednesday, was the last president born in the 19th century. He was not far removed from his heroic military leadership in World War II, an experience that clearly shaped his view of the world, and he benefited from the public's good will because of it. But America was only beginning to see emerging technological advances, often made possible by war–related research and development, that would come to play important roles in American politics in the not–so–distant future.

In Ike's day, for example, it wasn't crucial to look good on television because TV wasn't yet a commonplace item in every home. By the time Ike's vice president, Richard Nixon, was elected president, there were a lot more TVs in American homes, and how a candidate came across on television was more important. Today it is impossible to imagine a candidate who does not give a good impression on television being much of a success.

In many ways, that is reflected by a growing tendency to favor candidates because of which demographic group(s) they are believed to bring to the electoral table. The face of America is its president, and Americans increasingly show an inclination for that face to be a particular color or gender — and, in equal and opposite proportions, disdain for what Martin Luther King Jr. would call the content of a person's character.

Ike wasn't very photogenic, when you get right down to it. And he wasn't a stemwinder of a speaker, either. But he had some core virtues. Modern politicians would do well to follow his lead. The country certainly would benefit.

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He said things that made a lot of sense, things that both Democrats and Republicans ought to study today, but he showed no penchant for what is known today as a "sound bite." He probably thought they were frivolous and overly simple, but such things win elections these days. Common sense often cannot be boiled down to a single phrase that is suitable for a bumper sticker — although "I Like Ike" wasn't bad for its day.

Ike might have been persuaded to run as a Democrat. He had no party affiliation and was pursued by officials from both parties to seek their nominations. It is interesting that House Speaker Sam Rayburn brushed off talk about Eisenhower seeking the presidency when the topic was first raised in 1948: "Good man," Rayburn said, "but wrong business."

Eisenhower decided not to seek the presidency in 1948, and many people thought he had passed up his only opportunity. It was widely assumed at that time that Tom Dewey, who had lost the 1944 election to Franklin D. Roosevelt, would be elected over Roosevelt's successor, Harry Truman. It was further assumed that Dewey would be re–elected in 1952 — and Eisenhower, at age 66, would be too old to seek the presidency by 1956.

But Truman won in what is still regarded as a major upset, then became phenomenally unpopular and chose not to seek another term in 1952. By that time, Eisenhower was ready to declare himself a Republican after voicing his disagreements with Democrat policies. He may have been just as motivated by a desire to prevent Sen. Robert Taft, a non–interventionist, from winning the Republican nomination.

Eisenhower did deny Taft the nomination — after one of the closest, most bitterly fought presidential nomination battles in American history — but I have always wondered if it had as much (if not more) to do with Taft's unpopular opposition to the postwar Nuremberg trials. (In the interest of fairness, I should point out that future President John F. Kennedy praised Taft in "Profiles in Courage" for taking a principled stand in spite of public opposition.)

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During his tenure, Ike balanced the budget three times and cut the federal debt as a share of GDP. He was criticized as a "do–nothing" president, probably because of his domestic record, particularly Ike's record on civil rights. Seen from the 21st century, Ike's record on promoting racial equality appears to be unimpressive, but he took some important steps. Truman gets credit, and rightfully so, for desegregating the military, but Ike took it farther, ending the segregation that existed in VA hospitals and schools on military installations. His administration also navigated legislative waters in 1957 to pass the first civil rights act since Reconstruction.

Having grown up in Arkansas, one of the first things I learned about Eisenhower was that he enforced a desegregation court order that had been defied by Orval Faubus, the governor of Arkansas. It's worth noting that one of the members of Congress who opposed the president's action was Democrat John F. Kennedy.

I studied this when I took Arkansas history in school; in those days, I think it was a class everyone took in the fifth grade. For me that would have been more than a decade after the Little Rock Central crisis, but my memory is that our textbooks were brand–spanking new, so new that the books squeaked when you opened a cover or turned a page. Ours was the first class in my hometown to study an unbiased account of that moment in our home state's history. Those books had not been in use the previous year, when a text that was less balanced and tended to favor Faubus was used.

The New Republic's Richard Strout, bewildered by Eisenhower's soaring popularity (which seldom strayed below 50%), complained that "the less he does the more they love him." He didn't understand, as Ike did, that the American public was weary from the back–to–back experiences of the Great Depression and World War II. In the '50s, Americans craved stability.

Black Americans were still inclined to heavily support Democrats, as they had been since the ascent of Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency in 1932, but in 1956 Eisenhower received 39% of black America's vote when he sought a second term. Within a decade, Republican presidential nominees were receiving much less than 10% of black votes. Win or lose, has any Republican presidential nominee even come close to matching Eisenhower's achievement in the last 60 years?

In his rather modest, soft–spoken Midwestern way, Eisenhower achieved things without feeling the need to resort to self–promotion. He respected constitutional limits — on the use of military power, of the capacity of the government and the role of the president — and worked within them. He didn't try to get around them.

But there were still times when he wanted credit for things he did.

"The United States never lost a soldier or a foot of ground in my administration," he said after leaving the White House. "We kept the peace. People ask how it happened — by God, it didn't just happen, I'll tell you that."

We could use another Eisenhower today. Unfortunately, no candidate in either party remotely resembles him.

Does Military Service = Patriotism?

Here’s my question of the day.

If a person spent part of his/her life wearing a military uniform, is that person automatically more patriotic than someone who didn’t wear the uniform?

Military service in the United States has changed over the years. Today, we have an all-volunteer army, but through most of the 20th century, service in the military was compulsory. We’ve always had volunteers, but we’ve also drafted millions of young Americans who did not want to fight — whether the foe was North Vietnam, North Korea, Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany.

And that led to cases of soldiers deserting their outfits under fire — and draftees fleeing the country to avoid service.

Under the right circumstances, an all-volunteer army is probably the best way to defend a country. Its members want to be there, and they are unburdened by the presence of unhappy draftees.

In the case of America’s all-volunteer armed forces who participated in the Gulf War in the early 1990s, they had the assistance of millions of servicemen from all over the world. Thus, they were able to whip Iraq’s overwhelmed army and drive it from Kuwait in a few weeks.

But even an all-volunteer army is not without its flaws.

With the nation essentially engaged in a two-front war that has seemed to stretch the existing armed forces beyond their capabilities, many people — including myself — have been astonished that a draft has not been necessary.

Stress on America's military is even greater because there is no massive international effort in Afghanistan and Iraq — only the United States and George W. Bush's loosely cobbled "coalition of the willing."

The pressure on America's fighting men and women has led to cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression that has led to alcoholism, drug addiction and suicide, and fear that has led to desertion under fire.

People who serve in combat — whether they are compelled to do so or are there because they want to be there — are vulnerable to pain and pressure, the horrors of war. There are heroes, and there are those who lose their nerve in the service. Sometimes it takes the brutality of a battle to identify which is which.

It seems to me that, if anything, military service should mean that the veteran of such service learned something valuable from the experience that can be utilized in future endeavors.

Clearly, that can be an asset in a president.

In the case of John McCain, I have seen glimpses of the wisdom that was imparted to him in Vietnam in the form of his unflagging opposition to torture. That's a position worthy of a president who was shaped by his service in war — and a clear improvement over the current occupant of the White House.

Joe Conason writes, in Salon.com, that ”[t] he most pertinent issue is not what McCain did or didn't do during the war in Vietnam, but what he learned from that searing, incredibly bloody and wholly unnecessary failure of U.S. policy.” He contends that what is vital to McCain's approach to governing is not what he learned in Vietnam but what he didn't learn.

And, while Conason applauds McCain for his ”moral authority” on the issue of torture, he chastises McCain for what his experience in Vietnam did not teach him. He ”seems not to have learned why that war itself was a tragic mistake — and why we needed to leave Vietnam long before we did.”

Conason rejects McCain’s ”bitter analysis” that ”suggests that a ground invasion and an even more destructive bombing campaign, with an unimaginable cost in human life, would have achieved an American victory.”

Somehow, ”military service” has become synonymous with ”patriotism.” More than a mere synonym, it has become a blanket synonym, a ”one size fits all” designation of infallibility.

If one is called a military veteran, it immediately implies that person is a patriot. In the post-9/11 world, ”military service” is code wording for ”patriotism.”

It also implies an almost slavish devotion to an aggressive military approach to foreign affairs.

The point, it seems to me, is not whether one should be aggressive when engaged in combat.

The point is that one should show restraint until the decision has been made to engage in such combat.

And, with the Bush-Cheney administration, I believe such a decision was made about Iraq before many things had even been tried. It was not the "last resort" that George W. Bush said it would be.

I don't believe a person is a patriot simply because he/she wore a uniform. In many cases (unless the person in question was dishonorably discharged), it proves is that he/she was good at taking orders.

And, after America's five-year presence in Iraq, it appears to me that the phrase "military service" isn't quite as magical as it was recently — although it still retains some of its muscle.

Margaret Talev, writing for McClatchy Newspapers, asks, ”How important is military service in this presidential election?”

McCain would like for the voters to believe in the aura of infallibility that surrounds the veteran status in the popular myth, but it remains to be seen if it will benefit him in this campaign. As Talev points out, ”History shows that whether a candidate has military experience rarely determines who'll win election to the nation's highest office.”

It’s true that military service hasn’t prevented some men from becoming president. The nation’s first president, George Washington, was a general during the Revolutionary War. Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower all served in the military — as did a few other chief executives in the 19th and 20th centuries.

But the last two presidents never served in combat and were elected and re-elected against opponents who served overseas during wartime. Ronald Reagan qualified for limited service during World War II because of his nearsightedness, meaning that three of the last four presidents never served overseas — but nevertheless were elected to two terms each as commander in chief.

Surveys have suggested that, while Congress and the president have continued to lose ground in terms of public approval in recent years, the military retains its high approval in the public’s eyes.

So military service, like wearing an American flag on your lapel, is seen (unjustifiably) as proof of patriotism — when, in fact, they are code words and symbols.

Well, OK, some words really are code words for something else.

And some words have acquired that status over time — usually without total justification — but not without at least a kernel of truth behind it, which is usually how it is with stereotypes.

Like the phrase ”states’ rights” — which I used in this blog in a reference to my reaction to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on guns.

”States’ rights” came to be associated with resistance to integration.

In my mind, it means that certain rights have always been reserved for the states and, in those areas, the federal government oversteps its authority if it interferes — or attempts to interfere — in state business.

The concept of the rights of the states has always been crucial in American history, and it is legitimate to defend states’ rights. But the phrase was hijacked by the racists and used to shield the terrorist activities of groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

That doesn’t make the concept of states’ rights any less legitimate — it was part of the original Bill of Rights, the Tenth Amendment, to be precise.

The Confederates used the concept to justify the continuation of slavery — which was based more on economics than racism.

And in the years since the Civil War, particularly since the advent of the modern civil rights era, ”states’ rights” has come to be viewed as code wording that implies support for segregation and opposition to civil rights.

By the way, one of the last practitioners of the politics of states’ rights, Jesse Helms of North Carolina, died yesterday at the age of 86.

If there’s anyone left from that generation who participated in the hijacking of that phrase in order to promote the idea of racial segregation as a way to build political power, I don’t know who it is.