Senator Marshall, you’re no Dwight Eisenhower. And neither is Donald Trump | Opinion
Sen. Roger Marshall talked about how inspired he is by Dwight D. Eisenhower several times during his (sort-of) town hall meeting in Oakley on Saturday.
It might have been a whole lot more believable if Marshall wasn’t a handmaid to President Donald Trump in betraying Ukraine and throwing dirt on the grave of everything Eisenhower ever stood for.
Marshall’s live infomercial — sorry, it’s only a town hall if you take unscripted questions, which he didn’t — was a profile in the opposite of courage.
And the worst part of it was when he misappropriated the spirit of Eisenhower, the general who led the forces of freedom that defeated Nazism and a president who blocked Russian aggression in the postwar world.
“I looked up President Eisenhower, a big hero of mine,” Marshall said. “And he said, this is quoting President Eisenhower, may we always remember that no matter how certain we are that we’re right, if we truly believe in democracy, we must be willing to admit that we may be wrong.”
My first thought when he said that was go tell it to President Donald Trump, because no one has ever been more certain of their own infallibility than our narcissist-in-chief.
Marshall continued:
“I give a tour of the Capitol when people come to come to visit, bigger groups as well, and I always try to stop in front of President Eisenhower’s statue and share a little bit about his history, that he was the 34th president of the United States, (and) of course, Supreme Allied Commander. … When he finished his time of service, the historians said he’s the 31st best president we’ve ever had.”
If statues could talk, the Eisenhower statue in the Capitol would be giving Marshall an earful.
If there’s anything Eisenhower understood better than anyone, it’s that you can’t appease dictators with concessions. They invariably treat that as a sign of weakness, and a breather to replenish their armies and come after you again and again.
Marshall spoke less than 24 hours after the surrender monkeys in the White House ambushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, demanding he agree to a “peace plan” giving up 20% of his country and 20,000 kidnapped children to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Trump and his sidekick, Vice President J.D. Vance, stabbed Ukraine and our European allies in the back on international television, throwing this country’s support behind Russia and Putin to cheers from the Kremlin.
It’s a stain on the honor of America that will likely not wash away in our lifetimes.
In the most un-Eisenhower move ever, Marshall parroted the administration’s line that Ukraine’s courageous and world-inspiring resistance to Putin is a “bottomless pit” for American taxpayers, and he blamed Friday’s fiasco on Zelenskyy, who could barely get a word in edgewise while being berated by our beet-red-faced president.
“I know I was not surprised at all to see the blowup yesterday … based upon what the undercurrents were,” Marshall said. “There are ways to have avoided that event, but Mr. Zelenskyy insisted on coming to the White House to sign this agreement.”
It was frankly sickening to hear Marshall imply that Eisenhower would have approved of any part of this.
“My goal, I believe President Trump’s goal, is to have peace in this situation and avoid World War III,” Marshall said. “For those of you that want to keep warring over in Europe, I hope that you’re willing to send your own son or daughter, or yourself to go over there and fight it out. But personally, I think we’ve done enough.”
Contrast that with what Eisenhower said as he sent 160,000 allied troops — 73,000 of them American sons — into the meat grinder of the D-Day invasion to free other people’s countries from brutal dictatorship: “The eyes of the world are upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.”
Today, the hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with the soldiers of Ukraine.
And our senator and president are telling them to throw in the towel and quit, because we can’t be bothered to help them with supplies to continue the fight.
Marshall doesn’t even have the guts to defend his views to his own constituents.
He deliberately scheduled his so-called town hall in the far corner of nowhere, and was shocked when concerned citizens drove eight to ten hours round-trip for the scheduled hourlong event.
Marshall actually bailed out after only 37 minutes, when an audience member stood up and asked a hard but reasonable question about how many veterans have been caught up in the Trump administration’s random purge of the federal workforce — which by the way includes at least three staffers at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene.
So if I may borrow from the line made famous by the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen in the 1988 vice presidential debate: Senator Marshall, you’re no Dwight Eisenhower.
Neither is Donald Trump.
Not even close.
This story was originally published March 2, 2025 at 5:15 AM with the headline "Senator Marshall, you’re no Dwight Eisenhower. And neither is Donald Trump | Opinion."
