Why I’m Backing Obama
By Susan Eisenhower
Washington Post
Forty-seven years ago, my grandfather Dwight D. Eisenhower bid farewell to a nation he had served for more than five decades. In his televised address, Ike famously coined the term “military-industrial complex,” and he offered advice that is still relevant today.
“As we peer into society’s future,” he said, we “must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.”
Today we are engaged in a debate about these very issues. Deep in America’s heart, I believe, is the nagging fear that our best years as a nation may be over. We are disliked overseas and feel insecure at home. We watch as our federal budget hemorrhages red ink and our civil liberties are eroded. Crises in energy, health care and education threaten our way of life and our ability to compete internationally. There are also the issues of a costly, unpopular war; a long-neglected infrastructure; and an aging and increasingly needy population.
I am not alone in worrying that my generation will fail to do what my grandfather’s did so well: Leave America a better, stronger place than the one it found.
Given the magnitude of these issues and the cost of addressing them, our next president must be able to bring about a sense of national unity and change. As we no longer have the financial resources to address all these problems comprehensively and simultaneously, setting priorities will be essential. With hard work, much can be done.
The biggest barrier to rolling up our sleeves and preparing for a better future is our own apathy, fear or immobility. We have been living in a zero-sum political environment where all heads have been lowered to avert being lopped off by angry, noisy extremists. I am convinced that Barack Obama is the one presidential candidate today who can encourage ordinary Americans to stand straight again; he is a man who can salve our national wounds and both inspire and pursue genuine bipartisan cooperation. Just as important, Obama can assure the world and Americans that this great nation’s impulses are still free, open, fair and broad-minded.
No measures to avert the serious, looming consequences can be taken without this sense of renewal. Uncommon political courage will be required. Yet this courage can be summoned only if something profoundly different transpires. Putting America first — ahead of our own selfish interests — must be our national priority if we are to retain our capacity to lead.
The last time the United States had an open election was 1952. My grandfather was pursued by both political parties and eventually became the Republican nominee. Despite being a charismatic war hero, he did not have an easy ride to the nomination. He went on to win the presidency — with the indispensable help of a “Democrats for Eisenhower” movement. These crossover voters were attracted by his pledge to bring change to Washington and by the prospect that he would unify the nation.
It is in this great tradition of crossover voters that I support Barack Obama’s candidacy for president. If the Democratic Party chooses Obama as its candidate, this lifelong Republican will work to get him elected and encourage him to seek strategic solutions to meet America’s greatest challenges. To be successful, our president will need bipartisan help.
Given Obama’s support among young people, I believe that he will be most invested in defending the interests of these rising generations and, therefore, the long-term interests of this nation as a whole. Without his leadership, our children and grandchildren are at risk of growing older in a marginalized country that is left to its anger and divisions. Such an outcome would be an unacceptable legacy for any great nation.
Wild Thing’s comment……..
Well how abouto this…”My Grandfather wasn’t President, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express and Obama is becoming the scariest thing ever to run for President. ” – WT heh heh
Susan Eisenhower has done and said very liberal, dumb things before but this has to top the list. Would someone please track down Patton’s grandchild to kick her pinko loving ass!
My Dad told me about Ike and I always remember him telling me, Ike once stated in a speech that while growing up in Abilene, Kansas, “to talk about a democrat in Abilene was like speaking about the town drunk.”
She was married to a Russian, Roald Sagdeev. He was “head of the Soviet space program, adviser on arms control to Gorbachev, and Hero of Socialist Labor.” I don’t know if they’re still together.
She has her own consulting business in Washington. But she’s also a director of a consulting firm run by Clinton appointee Sandy Berger.
Her father John Eisenhower endorsed Kerry. http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/093004U.shtml
Ike has a beautiful residence at Gettysburg Pennsylvania. Susan married a Russkie and endorsed John Lurch Kerry? Susan should have visited the old Iron Bloc Warsaw-Pact gulags and Nazi death camps like Auschwitz! She is a disgrace to the ‘IKE’ name and a Ms. Benedict Arnold, big time. PS: She mourned for Lee Harvey Oswald too?
A contrary view, WT –
Ike was yet another reason why great military men do not make good Presidents. He had no party and even considered running as a Democrat when asked to do so.
He was a cavalry officer who broke up bonus demonstrations by war veterans, using his sabre. He was nearly apolitical all his life, on top of it all, and had no discernible conservative principles..
The John Birch Society claimed that Ike was a communist, and William Buckley said “Eisenhower isn’t a communist, he’s a golfer”…summing up Ike’s political convictions.
On the plus side, when you read his “military-industrial complex” speech in full, you find that he said the military NEEDED such a thing, and the left took his slight warning about the MIC to make him one of their own.
The Left, being motivated almost entirely by snobbery and class markers, seizes on the rambling banalities of a woman of no political importance, simply because of her lineage. Someone should tell these cranks that we have no aristocracy in America, and WHO you are doesn’t mean anything.
One thing that Democrats do to work against the Republicans is to register as a Rep and then vote for Dems. They work to move the Right to the Left from inside the party. Maybe we should start doing the same thing, only in reverse of course.
As a general, Ike was a politician. You wonder how many Americans died needlessly during WWII because Ike played politics to placate generals of our allies.
Too bad Ike and Mamie had kids.
Actually, it seem like the issues Ms Eisehower complains about are exactly the issues Democrats have caused and will make worse. Living for today and not considering tomorrow is a very liberal idea.
Darth, OMG how awful.
“She mourned for Lee Harvey Oswald too”
Rhod thank you so much, I didn’t know that about Ike. I really appreicate it.
I agree with you about how the left holds up an opinon of one of their own even if the person has no political importance.
Thank you.
Yankeemom, they sure do. I said that once to my cousin and she told me I was nuts. LOL BUT I know better and I agree with you completely.
Bob, how awful, how sad too.
Tom yes…”Living for today and not considering tomorrow is a very liberal idea”…it sure is.
I have to agree with Rhod, BobF and TomR, Ike wasn’t the best or the brightest of the bunch, like JFK, Kerry and McCain the word war hero connotates something akin to godlike, when as history has proven they were better servants than leaders.
The Yalta Agreement the Potsdam Conference and FDR’s Morgenthau Plan prove otherwise.
Ronald Reagan was a U.S. Army Captain, no media fanfare he simply served his country.
Because he lacked military experience, Theodore Roosevelt suggested that Leonard Wood be given command of the volunteer cavalry regiment; and accordingly Wood became colonel, and TR was made lieutenant colonel of the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, soon popularly known as the “Rough Riders.”.
Abraham Lincoln the sixteenth President of the United States, he had no military experience yet all three of these presidents, like George Washington, put their nation first and were great because of it.
Jack thank you so much for that information. I knew very little about Ike.
And thanks for the links too.
Susan Eisenhower should realize that if Barack Obama was President at the time of WWII that he would have looked at the heavy U.S. casualties and probably relieved her grandfather of his command for doing such a lousy job. Obama would have also brought the troops home as the Germans should have learned how to govern themselves.
Lastly, Barack Obama would have sat down and talked with Adolph Hitler to find out what the United States could do to make him, Benito Mussolini, and Emperor Hirohito like us. So, who gives a s**t what Susan Eisenhower thinks?