Be Like Ike

An instructive name pops up somewhere between Chris Christie’s speech/answer at the Reagan Library this week and Bill Kristol’s reaction here. That name is Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Governor Christie is correct, to some degree, to believe that the ambition to be president must reside in the heart—or the belly, depending on your metaphor—and Bill is equally correct to suggest that the heart should respond when duty calls. So I was struck not only by the qualities that Christie describes in his ideal public servant—qualities that could surely describe Eisenhower—and the circumstances which impelled Eisenhower to run for president 59 years ago.