Those who blame Colin Powell for failing to push on to Baghdad during the First Gulf War need to read Kevin Baker’s piece in this month’s American Heritage.

Baker shows how misplaced this rhetoric is by demonstrating that criticism of Powell is nothing compared to the criticism Eisenhower received for not getting to Berlin before the Soviets. Ike was labeled a Communist dupe and at worst a traitor according to Baker.

He quotes historian Jeff Broadwater: "Eisenhower & the Anti-Communist Crusade, pamphlets distributed by far-right fringe groups at the time labeled the victor of Normandy ‘a crypto-Socialist who had turned the best part of Germany over to the Russians.’ The campaign of his leading rival for the Republican nomination, Robert Taft, eagerly spread these charges around the country.”

And what of Powell? It is estimated a push on to Baghdad might have cost 10,000 lives. None of Powell’s critics were in a position to make the hard choices, determining which ten thousand American mothers should give up their sons.

As to the source of the chicken hawking regarding Powell, Baker adds: “It is unclear whether this is simply another crude attack on the Secretary by his enemies or a more subtle pre-emptive attempt to clear Bush père and his civilian underlings of the time—such as then Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney—of any blame for casualties that may be incurred in a renewed conflict against Saddam Hussein. It is in any case a calumny, one that badly misrepresents both the facts of the Gulf War and the way our constitutional system is designed to work.”