The long-running debacle over the Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C., is a textbook case of corruption. A great deal of money sloshes around without any accountability, pocketed by those with connections and without scruples, in the name of doing good. It’s a sucker’s game, at which taxpayers always lose. The Eisenhower Memorial travesty is more offensive than the usual palm greasing, because the greatness of an American hero is being lost.

“You like Ike. I like Ike. Everybody likes Ike for president.” So ran the campaign ditty from 1952. It was pretty well true. The former 5-star general won 39 states to Adlai Stevenson’s nine in the election of 1952. Even among those who voted Democrat, most probably would agree that they liked Ike. Both parties had courted him to run. He was the most admired man in the nation for more years than any other figure since Gallup began asking the question.