I like Ike (and hate the planned memorial)

Architect and Right By Ike spokesman Sam Roche writes to summarize the case against the planned Eisenhower Memorial on the Mall in Washington, DC. Designed by the atrocious postmodern architect Frank Gehry, it has rightly been called “a monumental shame.”

A friend writes to report that GOP Rep. Ken Calvert of California, chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, says he’s about to fund the memorial. Say it ain’t so, Ken!

My friend correctly adds that the four-acre behemoth (already 16 years in the making) has legions of opponents who see it, correctly, as a monument to Gehry’s ego rather than as a memorial to Ike. They object to its baronial size and grandiosity, so much out of keeping with Ike’s modesty and frugality (price tag: way north of $150 million). One wonders if Rep. Calvert’s constituents in Moreno Valley and Riverside might rather see this money spent on something other than a baronial folly destined for the National Mall.

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