Somehow, when GWB (who avoided going to war, and did not even fulfill his duties in the National Guard that helped him escape the real war) was running, all this didn’t matter.
Now that McCain is running against Obama, military and combat experience are very important in a president!
It’s stupid, but it will work, because people, for the most part, are stupid.
He commanded the largest attack squadron in the Navy. He had over 6,000 people under his command. I’d say that’s executive experience.
He also proved his leadership mettle in Vietnam when he was offered a chance to be set free from a POW camp quite early in his capture because he was the son of an Admiral. McCain was badly injured, and had all kinds of excuses to leave. But he knew his leaving would be used as propaganda, so he refused to go unless everyone who had been there longer was also released. Of course, that didn’t happen, and McCain wound up spending 5 1/2 years as a POW, enduring torture and brutal conditions the whole time.
Obama has never had his character tested in any way remotely similar to that. I’m not saying he has to have that kind of experience to be president, but if I were making up a big spreadsheet to compare the candidates, this is a big plus in McCain’s column.
Can I get a cite for that number?
All of a sudden you think combat experience counts for something, huh? When did you change your mind?
Presidents who had no combat experience:
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Franklin Roosevelt
Ronald Reagan
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush
Some of our shittiest presidents did have combat experience (Jackson, Grant, Buchanan).
It’s a meaningless qualification that has never been an indicator of what kind of POTUS someone will be.
As for tests of character, how about Barack Obama turning down six figure salaries to work at coroprate law firms in order to work for $10K a year as a community organizer on Chicago. That shows a rare kind of integrity and principle in my book. No matter how idealistic you might be in theory, it’s really hard to make that choice when the money’s right in front of you like that.
As a matter of politics, yes, of course McCain is going to have to exploit his POW experience. It’s all he’s got. It’s not going to be enough to evercome his platform of keeping everything exactly the same as it was under Bush.
“Fuck hope,” and “100 MORE YEARS IN IRAQ, BITCHES!” is not going to get it done for the dude.
What SQUADRON would have six thousand people in it? That’s more people than serve on an aircraft carrier.
It’s a plus only if you’ve already decided which party you support. McCain is to be commended for his bravery as a POW, but it doesn’t prove anything vis a vis his capability as a President. He didn’t seem to be terribly hung up on integrity when he chose to support Charles Keating as one of the Keating Five.
Once again, we don’t have to wait for the Republicans to start spreading that crap. Good ol’ Hillary is doing it for them.
And you know what that means, right? Visit a terrorist, you are a terrorist. Or at least you condone terrorism. Or don’t condemn it. Or something.
:rolleyes:
You *do * know that’s a Politico.com cite, right? :dubious:
YOu do know that it’s HILLARY’S PEOPLE who are using it as a source, directing people to it in THEIR newsletters and thereby making the implication, right? :dubious:
I thought we were talking about executive experience. The squadron I mentioned wasn’t in combat - he commanded it after he returned from Vietnam.
Looks like I made an error. I misread the statistiics. Here’s the wikipedia entry for Attack Squadron 174, which was McCain’s command when he came back from Vietnam:
From the cite:
So while it was the largest squadron, the number I cited was the number of people that went through it for training. Mea Culpa. I should have thought more about that number - it’s clearly way too large for a single squadron. It was probably more like a tenth that size. I blame the early morning posting, and being tired and shagged out after a long squawk.
Squadrons are typically 12 to 24 aircraft. This one was the ‘largest in the Navy’, so maybe it was slightly bigger. I’d guess you’ve got maybe 100-500 people in a squadron like that. But I couldn’t find an exact number, so that’s just a guess.
So basically, McCain has no executive experience and didn’t “command” much of anything. He flew missions and commanded small units, but he wasn’t fucking Patton or anything. His “command” experience is about the same as John Kerry’s was.
Kerry did have other people in the boat with him, at least.
:shrug: Maybe you should take that up with Richard Parker. Is Politico a reliable source only when they favor your position?
Now THAT would be a juicy sex scandal!
Daniel
What the fuck are you talking about? They don’t favor “my position”, whatever that is.
They are being used as a source BY HILLARY CLINTON’S CAMPAIGN!
Click the link I provided right ABOVE the quote box. HERE, I’ll give it to you again, so it’s nice and easy. . .
http://blog.hillaryclinton.com/blog/main/2008/02/22/143137
It’s HILLARY’S CAMPAIGN that is directing people to that Politico article, AS IF IT HAS SOME GRAVITAS.
Now, would you care to wage half as much criticism towards your candidate for using such a (according to you) disreputable site in an effort to associate Barack Obama with terrorists?
I’d wait for an answer, but I fear I’ll get exactly the same cold, dead silence I got in the last thread where I proved you failed to make your point, asked for a concession and got summarily ignored.
No. John Kerry commanded a small boat with a handful of guys. McCain commanded an entire squadron - he would have been Kerry’s CO. He also retired with the rank of Captain, compared to Kerry being a Lieutenant.
But I agree in a sense - commanding a squadron is not the type of ‘executive experience’ that counts for much in terms of the White House. Especially military command, which has quite a different structure and rules from civilian government or the private sector.
McCain isn’t running for President, he’s running for Commander in Chief.
What the heck does that mean? Isn’t the president the Commander in Chief? If McCain doesn’t wanna be president, fine. If he just wants to be CiC and play with troops, buy him a RISK board or a copy of Civilization 4.
You may not understand, his supporters do.
Maybe they’d care to explain, then.