Your comment on Ike is so true, so very true.
I had the inestimable honor of meeting him once, when I was 18. What a man. His warning to the ages about the military-industrial complex was right on target. Washington has become a monster, both in terms of government power over the lives of citizens and in terms of the cluster of government agencies, high-tech and defense industries crowding all around it, driving real estate values to insane heights, clogging all the roadways for a 60-mile radius and driving out the kind of creativity that comes from ordinary people living in safe neighborhoods doing grassroots development of small businesses. It has become the most financially-intense, lawyer-ridden zone in the country, worse than LA or NY.