In article ,
Peter Skelton writes:
On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 22:45:07 +0100, "John Redman"
om wrote:

Has there ever been a Republican President the left did *not* insist was
"dumb"?

Ike was not dumb but I'm too young to remember his press
coverage. I do remember Nixon's, he was accused of a lot of
things but not stupidity.

Eisenhower was generally presented as an amiable, likelble, old guy,
with no real grasp of teh complications of medern society.
(Especially compared to Adlai Stevenson)
The fact that he was in charge of the military and diplomatic ends of
the largest-ever example oc Coalition Warfare ever seen a mere 6 years
before seems to have escaped attention.
But, then, the "RightLeft" thing was much less of an issue. In
those days, it was more "Machine Politician" vs. "Free Thinker"

I think the biggest surprise in that era was Harry Truman. Previous
to stepping up to the plate when F.D.R. died, he was the Nobody
Senator who npbpdy really disliked, who was a scion of the second or
third most corrupt Political Machines in the country.
(One of the reasons that FDR chose, or allowed Truman to be chosen,
was because Truman had nothing against him, and there were pretty good
odds that Roosevelt wouldn;t finish his term. By 1944, everybody was
suspicious of Henry Wallace, the sitting Vice President, and with good
reason. He was a rather loopy sort, philosophically, and the
Counter-Intelligence folks had discovered that he had been feeding
information to both the Abwehr (Inadvertantly, he couldn't keep his
mouth shut) and the Soviets (On purpose, for reasons that he never
could explain the same way twice).

Truman weht in as a nobody, the next best thing to a puppet, and when
the time came for him to be President, surprised everybody with his
force of personality, skill, and willingness to be his own man.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster