I was busy working on non-blogging stuff yesterday. I wish I had had time to write about the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. I’m not sure exactly why, although the credit belongs to my parents, but MLK was my greatest political hero growing up. I didn’t really think about FDR, JFK, RFK, or any other political leaders. I looked up to Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and King. It’s funny because after going off and getting a college education and studying history, I haven’t changed my initial estimation much at all. I think more of FDR, less of JFK, but my heroes remain Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and King. The only thing that really changed was that I came to believe the hype about Abraham Lincoln and I decided Eisenhower was one of our greatest presidents.
In the late 1990’s historians started a mass rehabilitation of Truman’s legacy. I just don’t buy it. I appreciate all the solid scholarship, but Truman remains, for me, pretty much the butthead most people thought he was. That’s not to dismiss everything he did, because he made some excellent decisions that were largely unappreciated at the time.
But I think every president since FDR, save Eisenhower, was ultimately a dunderhead. And even Ike made some pitiful decisions.
Out of curiosity, why Washington?
Oh wow. I could go on and on and on.
But I won’t.
I see Washington as the greatest political man I have ever read about in history.
There are non-political and anti-political people I admire more, but no one stands out as great as George Washington.
It’s funny because when I was a kid they told me all that hooey about how he could not tell a lie. And when I found out he was a slave owner and a fallible human being I was disillusioned in that teenage kind of way.
But the more I learned about him, the more I thought he was so much greater than even our hagiographic histories make him out to be.
OK. I’ll have to read more about him…he stood out to me because from my (admittedly limited…damn you engineering college) knowledge of history he was a fantastic general and an inspiring commander, but is an anomaly in the group that you mention. The others were all intellectuals who had an extraordinary grasp on the big picture and how to close the gap between the regular and ideal; in contrast, what I’ve read of Washington makes him out to be kind of boorish.
This may be apocryphal, and it is certainly a paraphrase, but King George III reportedly said that if Washington willingly stepped down from the presidency (after serving two terms) he would be the greatest living man. He was right.
Huh, so G3 wasn’t syphilitically crazy all the time, then, was he? I think I’ll go read up on Washington pre-Revolution.
His Excellency was good.
He had porphyria, a condition that turns your wee-wee purple and makes you off in circles.
While I can certainly appreciate the sentiment, I’ll take that endorsement with a grain of salt. After all, an addict who sees another addict kick the habit surely sees a greatness he’s not sure he himself possesses.
Remember that that was a world where addiction was not a recognized affliction.
Fair enough, but if George III really said that then there is an implied moral positive in giving up that thing which is most difficult to give up.
Monarchs did have trouble understanding the concept of Republican Democracy. Fortunately, Washington was willing to demonstrate how the thing is supposed to work.
George Washington really came alive to me when I read Fred Anderson’s Crucible of War. It starts with a narrative prologue that describes George Washington’s first, disastrous, experience of military leadership – an encounter that led to a world war.
Here’s a Link that takes you to it, scroll down to the portion entitled Prologue: Jumonville’s Glen May 28, 1754
is that he made sure to free all of his slaves at his death with his will; his wife’s slaves he could not free–it was stipulated–until after her death. However, the very conservative Martha Washington, who didn’t like what Georgie did, was so freaked out at the idea that her slaves might slip her a permanent mickey (the Haitian Revolution and Gabriel Prosser’s 1800 insurrection as active precedents), that she freed them a year before she died. Her grown children, the Custises, were horrified; the wealth and property signified by the passing of slaves and their children to the next generation was effectively voided.
I don’t admire Washington for his youthful greed that some historians think helped start the French and Indian War (the Seven Years War in the colonies).
I do admire him for stepping back and not becoming a dictator, like Napoleon. And it would have happened.
What is it with these Tory wives of great men? Jefferson’s wife was like this, too. And her name was Martha.
I just visited Monticello a couple of weeks ago and I highly recommend it to everyone. Jefferson’s wife died in about 1782 or so, and she was still rather young. I don’t have a clue about her attitude towards slavery, but she certainly could not have run that place without them. Jefferson’s finances were always a problem, even after he served as president. He did let Sally Hemings live in Charlottesville, even though he never technically freed her. If he had, she would have had one year to leave the state. Virginia passed a law about that in about 1806.
Booman, would you mind elaborating on your thoughts regarding Eisenhower? I’m just curious, and you probably know more about it than I do.
What I know, though, is what my father told me: “As a child, watching Eisenhower on TV after the U-2 incident was the first time I saw a president lie.” An anecdote, sure, but it was influential on me.
Dad also told me though that Ike was inches away from entering the ’52 race as a Dem. Is that true?
Again, just curious (and temporarily ignorant). I must have missed your previous thoughts on Eisenhower.
Ike did lie about the U2 and he got busted.
The U2, by the way, was what enable us to see the Russian nukes in Cuba. It was a program introduced by the CIA and the guy that founded Kodak. Pretty cool stuff.
Anyway, he was recruited by both parties in ’52 and he could have run as a Dem if he wanted to. How close was he to doing so? Not sure. I do know that Truman wouldn’t even talk to him (except niceties) on the way to the inauguration.
Ike was a check on McCarthyism. He kept us out of the 1954 Dienbienphu fiasco in Vietnam, the 1956 Suez War, and he established an excellent national security council. He also made a bad long lasting decision on Iran and overreacted in Guatemala.
All you have to do is compare him to every other president in the last 60 years. He was the best.
LBJ showed the most courage, but he also made the biggest mistake.
Thanks Booman. I knew the bit about U2 and I guess just needed to be reminded about Iran and Guatemala- those last two have been higher in the blogospheric consciousness recently if I recall correctly.
I’d completely forgotten about his position during the Red Scare. I assume, then, that McCarthy would have been after him sooner or later? Wasn’t the “no sense of decency” quote from another general who’d been in Joe’s sights?
That’s also interesting about Vietnam. I thought that was roundabout when the US started getting into it, when the French were ousted. Or was that when we simply began propping up Saigon?
The ’50s really were only one-dimensional in the most superficial sense, weren’t they?
We rebuilt Europe, established NATO, let the UN (that we created) push us around, and rebuilt Japan.
I think our work in the 1950’s was, on balance, exemplary. But we made some really big mistakes, too.
Joseph Welsh has the Army’s attorney.
We rebuilt Europe
I thought the Europeans rebuilt Europe: we just loaned them some money to buy goods from us that they couldn’t produce themselves because we had destroyed their factories.
You sound like you have more in common with Dick Cheney than Noam Chomsky. Is that really what the best progressive bloggers have to offer us?
It’s called enlightened self-interest, Alexander. Indeed, the Europeans rebuilt Europe, yes they did. As far as the money is concerned, it’s just money.
Go back and look at the congressional debate. Mnay people didn’t want to spend a dime on Europe. Smarter heads prevailed.
Oh, and Suez is the one I always forget. Then my brain does the Nasser-UK-France routine and it comes back. Then I remember that Egypt and Syria became one country for a while, and I’m off on the historical trivia tangent again.
It wasn’t only Iran and Guatemala. He approved the killing of Lumumbain the Congo, and the attempted assassination of Sukarno in Indonesia. The Castro assassination plots were first discussed in 1959 in his administration.
I’m really surprised you have such a high opinion of Eisenhower, who didn’t have to be pressured to support such coups, but opposed to Kennedy, who fought hard to oppose these.
We are all influenced by the Mighty Wurlitzer. Ike was neck-deep in Southeast Asia and LBJ changed directions and went full-tilt into Vietnam under the Gulf of Tonkin fakery, but the media always seems to tar JFK with that one even though his NSAM 263 called for withdrawal. Likewise, Kennedy gets stuck with the Bay of Pigs when it was clearly a holdover operation from the Eisenhower Administration.
It was during the Eisenhower Administration that the Dulles Brothers laid the foundation for the cancerous secret government that afflicts us today.
I’m not willing to blame it all on him, and Ike’s “military-industrial complex” warning should have been heeded. I’m sure after the CIA set him up with the U-2 thing that he was fully aware of how out of control things had gotten.
Still, much of JFK’s foreign policy problems grew from controlling the real enemies within, and his eventual downfall and the downfall of much of our democracy were rooted in the spread of the secret government during Ike’s time in office.
He did get the interstates going, though.
I forgot to add the interstates to the list of Ikrimes. He got them through a reluctant conservative Congress by a Big Lie about how they were for National Defense. His cronies made billions and managed to kill passenger railroads and enable the burbsprawl that is presently killing our economy and our environment. Thanks for the reminder.
Over the years I’ve come to believe that Lincoln was the most heroic leader the country has ever had – mostly because his path has always seemed so solitary to me.
I don’t doubt the greatness of Washington and Jefferson and Madison but while their greatness arises out of certain individual deeds it also seems very collaborative. Lincoln lacked a collaborator.
There’s nothing wrong with collaboration, in fact I prize it. And maybe Lincoln would have been even greater with a collaborator. But it is the fact that he often seemed alone that always strikes me.
In that vein, I agree that MLK is a great hero of America. But his achievements must also be seen alongside and in collaboration with the achievements of Thurgood Marshall. Marshall isn’t given nearly enough credit imo for setting the table for King. Just as Jefferson wrote the Declaration but Washington fought to make it a reality; Marshall achieved the legal recognition of rights from the Judicial Branch and then King went out into the streets to demand that the Executive Branch enforce those rights. I believe you needed them both.
And Clarence Thomas was such an excellent successor on the high court.
Clarence is an insult to the memory. But it is Marshall’s years as a civil rights lawyer in the 50’s that I revere, more than his years on the court.
I went looking for a youtube with a bio of Thurgood Marshall and didn’t find one. But I found this interview in the 1950’s with Mike Wallace. The quality isn’t great but it’s interesting because he’s asked about Eisenhower. And he has some harsh words for Southern Democrats. This must have been after the 1956 election.
good thing wallace didn’t need to wait for a cig break.
Washington is also my favorite. I was wondering where to put this 1788 letter from Washington to Lafayette about the Miracle at Philadelphia (Catherine Drinker Bowen) — from Writings of George Washington, (p290-293; Edited by Lawrence B. Evans):
I pretty much agree, Boo. But… the expectations of the Pres. are such that we must have an extraordinary person at the helm. The job is held up to be that important. However, most people are dunderheads. So, it should be no surprise to us that most of our presidents are dunderheads.
We seriously need to lower the expectations we have of our president. As we do, our presidents will have less power and We, The People will have more 🙂
Ah yes, those pitiful decisions. They are destined to be repeated
If only George W Bush had read some Ike. Indeed, if any of us had read some Ike.
“Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.”
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
“We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
~Dwight D. Eisenhower
Wisdom, he had.
Malcolm
Curious on anyone else’s take of HBO’s interpretation of McCullough’s Madison? This seems to be the founding father most Americans are least familiar with, seemed like a brilliant dude, but kind of insufferable.
Your Eisenhower worship will remain one of life’s itchy little mysteries to me. He could have crushed McCarthy with a few well chosen words but instead let him ruin the lives of countless lefties and other inconveniences. By his political cowardice he legitimized the “anti-communist” bullying that silences progressive voices right up to today.
He did more than anyone to set the tone for the Cold War and the hysteria over the “godless atheists” who were plotting to overthrow Jesus.
He never cashed a paycheck that didn’t come from the government, yet railed endlessly about the leeches who take taxpayer money.
He played nice with the malefactors of great wealth, doing as much as anybody to establish and feed the Military Industrial Complex, then on his last day in office, when it was too late to do anything about it, he told us about the great danger of what he had so profitably nurtured.
As pointed out above, he was an unabashed imperialist and hysterical nativist.
As far as I’m concerned he marks the turning point away from the secular progressivism of FDR (who had his own flaws, gods know) to the know-nothing capitalist-Jesus complex that aborted America’s potential for greatness.
It’s too bad Amazon doesn’t do presidents. If it did, it would say “Customers who bought Eisenhower also like John McCain”.
though I understood the non-violence movement.