Curd and Noem Know Nukes? Republicans Evidently Don't Like Ike

R. Blake Curd is a wealthy Sioux Falls surgeon who likes mansions and tries buying access to candidates of whichever party holds power. Kristi Noem is a farm welfare queen without a college degree. Both scare me when they farcically pretend to be nuclear warriors and presume to criticize President Barack Obama's nuclear weapons policy.

While the President is busy signing historic treaties with Russia, Curd and Noem might want to brush up on the history of an icon of their own party:

In the spring of 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower made a sweeping change in the American approach to nuclear war. Henceforth, the United States would rule out waging nuclear war against non-nuclear states....

Eisenhower had no grand objective in installing this policy. Rather, he had become worried by a growing clamor emanating from the Pentagon, supported by “wizard of Armageddon” intellectuals like Henry Kissinger and Democrats keen on retaking the White House, that the United States could wage, and win, a “limited” nuclear war....

On Monday, President Obama announced, in his Nuclear Posture Review, a new American approach to nuclear war that comes right out of Eisenhower’s playbook. And, indeed, Mr. Obama quickly came under criticism from those who have argued that new American technologies, together with the diminished capacity of traditional adversaries, have now made nuclear war winnable... [Campbell Craig, "Just Like Ike (on Deterrence)," New York Times, 2010.04.08].

Yeah, but Eisenhower was soft on Communism, too, right?

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p.s.: Yes, Nelson made similar noise at the same forum about Obama's new nukes policy. But I give Nelson a break this morning, simply because I appreciate his continuing, consistent, and straightforward defense he's been giving conservatives for his role in taking Rep. Roger Hunt to reveal the name of the big anonymous donor in the 2006 anti-abortion campaign. "It wasn't about Roger Hunt, and it wasn't about the issue [of abortion]," Nelson told a conservative forum in Sioux Falls Monday. The lawsuit was about the law. Nelson is doing his share of pandering to the yahoos (also known as my fellow citizens), but if we're going to have a Republican stink up the joint, I'd take the faint musk of Nelson over the stench of Woe de Noem or That Which Rhymes with Curd.

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Update 2010.04.10: As Mr. Smith notes below and as Mr. Feser notes here, Curd and Noem also appear to forget that President Obama goal of a nuke-free world mirrors that of Saint Ronald. Nuclear policy also happens to be one of President Obama's strongest areas of experience... certainly stronger than anything any South Dakota candidate has to offer.