Rate the Presidents, Installment #34: Dwight D. Eisenhower

[ScottieF]

Four stars. He's certainly a top ten president and I can think of few if any others who possessed such a remarkable understanding of the relationship between foreign and domestic policy. There is a link there in virtually everything he did. That being said he wasn't particularly "transformative" - more the best caretaker president we ever had - and some of his espionage shenanigans with the vile Dulles brothers detract him from the heights of greatness.

[ScottieF]

I figured Eisenhower would do very well. He tends to be the rare president (maybe the only modern president?) where almost no one on the ideological spectrum is going to give him one star by isolating one issue and taking a contrarian opinion. These polls tend to reward effective but mostly inconsequential presidents (e.g. Arthur, Monroe) but punishes consequential and therefore controversial presidents (e.g. Jackson, Wilson).

[ScottieF]

1 star. His economic policy was atrocious, and it nearly landed the country into another Depression; his foreign policy via the Eisenhower Doctrine planted the seeds for reactionary, anti-American sentiment in the Middle East--which we still see today in the form of Iran, Syria, and Iraq.  What is more, he even let Birchers like Ezra Taft Benson get sway in national politics.  A good man and a fabulous general, but an awful President.

What?