Today I heard MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell read the message that General Dwight Eisenhower, commander of the D-Day allied forces that invaded the beaches of Normandy in France on June 6, 1944, wrote the day before the invasion -- to be shared if D-Day failed.
(Eisenhower wrote the date as July 5, rather than June 5. Hey, the guy had a lot on his mind. His writing isn't highly legible, so I've shared the text below the image.)
"Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."
I agree with O'Donnell that there's no way Donald Trump would ever write such a message, taking full responsibility for a mission he led that failed. Trump is a coward who fails to take responsibility for anything that goes wrong.
He lost the 2020 election because Americans wanted Joe Biden to be president rather than him. But instead of congratulating Biden and acknowledging his defeat, Trump has spent the past four years acting like a cry-baby, falsely claiming that the election was rigged despite mountains of evidence that it was free and fair.
Dwight Eisenhower, by contrast, was a Republican who stood up for honor, decency, courage, and the other qualities that made him both a successful military commander and a successful president. I was eight when he successfully ran for a second term in 1956.
My mother, an avid Republican, loved Eisenhower. One of her best friends, who she played bridge with frequently, was an avid Democrat who loved Adlai Stevenson, Eisenhower's opponent in both the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections.
However, I'm pretty sure her Democratic friend respected Eisenhower for the competent and decent man that he was.
Donald Trump has brought those days of mutual respect to a crashing close. I can envision Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George Bush all writing a message in the style of the Eisenhower D-Day failure message. While I disagreed with these Republican presidents on many of their policies, I never doubted their basic commitment to the laudable qualities Eisenhower demonstrated.
But Trump... he's light years away from representing what the Republican Party used to stand for.
Which included supporting our allies in the fight for freedom (Trump wants to weaken NATO and end support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia) and recognizing the sacrifices members of the American military have made (Trump reportedly said that those in a WW II military cemetery in France were "losers" and "suckers.")
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