The Birchers thought anything was acceptable in the name of fighting "godless Communism." They even thought Eisenhower was a commie or at least a "commsymp."
I view Ike pretty favorably, mainly because of his "Farewell Address" warning of the dangers of a "military-industrial complex."
The MIC has now destroyed us. There's not much left to fight for. They spent all the money on militarism and useless wars and now the "homeland" is going Third World - permanently.
I view Ike pretty favorably, mainly because of his "Farewell Address" warning of the dangers of a "military-industrial complex."
Ike was my favorite president of the twentieth century. He had a calmness and a maturity about him that reminds me quite a bit of George Washington. Of course, he had his moments as well. He bargained a slot for Earl Warren on the Supreme Court so Warren would deliver CA's electoral votes, a terrible error that he regretted and should have reneged on. He inserted "under God" into the fascist Pledge when he should have abolished it altogether. And he should have reined in the excesses of McCarthy somewhat, not that McCarthy was wrong about communist infiltration but it did become a frenzied public witch hunt and didn't accomplish its goal of eradicating communist influence in government. He was also probably the only president with enough authority to restrain J. Edgar Hoover but he chose not to do so, not that Hoover had really fully blossomed yet as a Gestapo chief and commissar during Ike's time but the tendency was already obvious enough.
I also like Do-Nothing Warren Harding who did remarkably little damage to the country while he was emperor, mostly because he was too busy partying and having a good time. This is how the Depression of 1921-1922 was only a recession, not a Great Depression. Harding sensibly refused to do anything about it and the markets and the banks straightened it out in only two years, leading to some years of considerable prosperity before the next bust in 1929 when the disastrous Hoover/FDR combo destroyed the economy until 1946.