HIRSH: Ike Was Right
Eisenhower’s only litmus test was competence. If only the Bush administration would follow his example.
By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek
Updated: 6:40 p.m. ET Oct. 4, 2006
Oct. 4, 2006 - He was a Republican president from Texas at a time of great peril for America, a moment in history when the conservative base of his party was dominated by radical thinking about how to take on the nation’s mortal enemy. It was an election year, and the GOP was making political hay by mocking Democratic weakness. Among the most radical Republican critics was one of the president’s own top cabinet officers, who called for pre-emptive war.
But Dwight D. Eisenhower said no to that. In some of the most important yet little appreciated decisions ever made by any U.S. president, Ike faced down both his own advisers and his base in the early to mid-’50s and embraced the containment policies of the other party. And he did it for a simple reason: he knew they were right. His only litmus test was competence.
It’s important to remember this relatively obscure chapter of American history today, a time when the GOP—the supposed party of adults—is being accused of incompetence on almost every level: from running a war to managing the nation’s budget to overseeing its sexual mores. And it’s useful to remind ourselves that, just as old Harry Truman once said, the buck does indeed stop in the Oval Office. Donald Rumsfeld may be the disastrously clueless and arrogant secretary of Defense portrayed by Bob Woodward's new book, “State of Denial.” But cabinet secretaries are disposable, as is every presidential appointee who ill serves the nation, and their advice can be ignored. All that is needed is a president with the judgment to dispose of them—as it appears even Laura Bush wanted to do with Rumsfeld, according Bob Woodward—or at least to ignore them.
One of the virtues of the Woodward book is that it helps to move us away from the template we’ve all used to write about the Bush administration, in which Bush is routinely seen as a strong leader, and every mistake is blamed on Rummy, or Dick Cheney or Condoleezza Rice, among others. It restores a sense of balance about how government is supposed to work and who’s in charge.
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By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek
Updated: 6:40 p.m. ET Oct. 4, 2006
Oct. 4, 2006 - He was a Republican president from Texas at a time of great peril for America, a moment in history when the conservative base of his party was dominated by radical thinking about how to take on the nation’s mortal enemy. It was an election year, and the GOP was making political hay by mocking Democratic weakness. Among the most radical Republican critics was one of the president’s own top cabinet officers, who called for pre-emptive war.
But Dwight D. Eisenhower said no to that. In some of the most important yet little appreciated decisions ever made by any U.S. president, Ike faced down both his own advisers and his base in the early to mid-’50s and embraced the containment policies of the other party. And he did it for a simple reason: he knew they were right. His only litmus test was competence.
It’s important to remember this relatively obscure chapter of American history today, a time when the GOP—the supposed party of adults—is being accused of incompetence on almost every level: from running a war to managing the nation’s budget to overseeing its sexual mores. And it’s useful to remind ourselves that, just as old Harry Truman once said, the buck does indeed stop in the Oval Office. Donald Rumsfeld may be the disastrously clueless and arrogant secretary of Defense portrayed by Bob Woodward's new book, “State of Denial.” But cabinet secretaries are disposable, as is every presidential appointee who ill serves the nation, and their advice can be ignored. All that is needed is a president with the judgment to dispose of them—as it appears even Laura Bush wanted to do with Rumsfeld, according Bob Woodward—or at least to ignore them.
One of the virtues of the Woodward book is that it helps to move us away from the template we’ve all used to write about the Bush administration, in which Bush is routinely seen as a strong leader, and every mistake is blamed on Rummy, or Dick Cheney or Condoleezza Rice, among others. It restores a sense of balance about how government is supposed to work and who’s in charge.
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1 2 Next >
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 4:30 PM
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