VK, We often disagree but this time I am in full agreement with you. Ike had the abilities to see the big picture, do what was right for the US and bring along our allies. He oversaw one of the most prosperous and productive eras in American History and laid the groundwork for Kennedy's famous tax cuts and facing down of the USSR in the Cuban Missile crisis. He rejected the French appeal to go into Vietnam and cautioned against ever becoming involved in a war in SE Asia. We remember him most for his Farewell Address and his caution against the Militatary-Industrial complex.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/spee...rfarewell.html

I urge everyone on this board to take the time to read (and hopefully listen to) these very wise addressed to this nation.

The urge to be careful of the influence of the Military-Industrial complex has been met. It is no longer an overwhelming driver of our economy and is less than half of the GDP in this country that it was in Ike’s time.

He had other cautions for us that we have ignored. The first of these was the danger that public policy could become the policy of a scientific-technological elite. This has come true in the death of tens of millions of people and incalculable expenditures in the blind following of the environmentalist movement.

Another was what he termed the element of time. He urged that, “…you and I, and our government -- 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.” One can only wonder what he would think of a United States that piles on trillions upon trillions of debt for our grandchildren to deal with.

Again, take the ten minutes to listen to what he said in less than 2,000 words. IMHO, this is the clearest challenge to the American people since the Gettysburg Address.