EDITORS NOTE: This commentary was originally
published Sept. 9, 2004.
THE Presidential election to be held this
coming Nov. 2 will be one of extraordinary importance
to the future of our nation. The outcome will
determine whether this country will continue on the
same path it has followed for the last 3½ years or
whether it will return to a set of core domestic and
foreign policy values that have been at the heart of
what has made this country great.
Now more than ever, we voters will have to make
cool judgments, unencumbered by habits of the past.
Experts tell us that we tend to vote as our parents
did or as we “always have.” We remained loyal to
party labels. We cannot afford that luxury in the
election of 2004. There are times when we must break
with the past, and I believe this is one of them.
As son of a Republican President, Dwight D.
Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that
I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election
of 2000, I was. With the current administration’s
decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I
changed my voter registration to independent, and
barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend
to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate,
Sen. John Kerry.
The fact is that today’s “Republican” Party
is one with which I am totally unfamiliar. To me, the
word “Republican” has always been synonymous with
the word “responsibility,” which has meant
limiting our governmental obligations to those we can
afford in human and financial terms. Today’s
whopping budget deficit of some $440 billion does not
meet that criterion.
Responsibility used to be observed in foreign
affairs. That has meant respect for others. America,
though recognized as the leader of the community of
nations, has always acted as a part of it, not as a
maverick separate from that community and at times
insulting towards it. Leadership involves setting a
direction and building consensus, not viewing other
countries as practically devoid of significance.
Recent developments indicate that the current
Republican Party leadership has confused confident
leadership with hubris and arrogance.
In the Middle East crisis of 1991, President George
H.W. Bush marshaled world opinion through the United
Nations before employing military force to free Kuwait
from Saddam Hussein. Through negotiation he arranged
for the action to be financed by all the
industrialized nations, not just the United States.
When Kuwait had been freed, President George H. W.
Bush stayed within the United Nations mandate, aware
of the dangers of occupying an entire nation.
Today many people are rightly concerned about our
precious individual freedoms, our privacy, the basis
of our democracy. Of course we must fight terrorism,
but have we irresponsibly gone overboard in doing so?
I wonder. In 1960, President Eisenhower told the
Republican convention, “If ever we put any other
value above (our) liberty, and above principle, we
shall lose both.” I would appreciate hearing such
warnings from the Republican Party of today.
The Republican Party I used to know placed heavy
emphasis on fiscal responsibility, which included
balancing the budget whenever the state of the economy
allowed it to do so. The Eisenhower administration
accomplished that difficult task three times during
its eight years in office. It did not attain that
remarkable achievement by cutting taxes for the rich.
Republicans disliked taxes, of course, but the party
accepted them as a necessary means of keep the
nation’s financial structure sound.
The Republicans used to be deeply concerned for the
middle class and small business. Today’s Republican
leadership, while not solely accountable for the loss
of American jobs, encourages it with its tax code and
heads us in the direction of a society of very rich
and very poor.
Sen. Kerry, in whom I am willing to place my trust,
has demonstrated that he is courageous, sober,
competent, and concerned with fighting the dangers
associated with the widening socio-economic gap in
this country. I will vote for him enthusiastically.
I celebrate, along with other Americans, the
diversity of opinion in this country. But let it be
based on careful thought. I urge everyone, Republicans
and Democrats alike, to avoid voting for a ticket
merely because it carries the label of the party of
one’s parents or of our own ingrained habits.
John Eisenhower, son of President Dwight D.
Eisenhower, served on the White House staff between
October 1958 and the end of the Eisenhower
administration. From 1961 to 1964 he assisted his
father in writing “The White House Years,” his
Presidential memoirs. He served as American ambassador
to Belgium between 1969 and 1971. He is the author of
nine books, largely on military subjects.
Saddam's
weapons: