. . . Not everybody is buying that John-McCain-is-a-war-hero stuff. Here’s a guy (a professor at Princeton, no less) who figures McCain is halfway to being a regular Hitler. (The commenters agree, and then some.)

“A person may have an excellent character (honest, brave, steadfast, patriotic) and still be totally unsuited for the job of President.“ (Roy)

That’s a good point Roy—an important point. And there’s this old saying that I just made up:

Most people have good character until they get into a pinch.

Folks with (outwardly) impeccable character simply have never been in a pinch. The fact they haven’t ever been in a bind might be because they’re super-smart, maybe, but in a lot of cases its because they’ve led sheltered lives.

When it comes to being president I believe I’d trust more someone who’s been in dire straits before. Which is why I tend to prefer veterans.

Well, I was trying to stay out of this one . . . but I ain’t no longer.  Three responses here.
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Regarding draft-dodgers, one of the bravest people I know is Tim Kendall.  He was at Notre Dame, with a student deferment, looking at a ministerial deferment when he was graduated, when they introduced the draft lottery.  He sent a letter to the Richmond draft board, cc to the Prez and the RTD/RNL, explaining that he would no longer participate in the draft, since it was part of an immoral system.  With the support of his classmates and the faculty, he finished his final school year, then returned to Richmond, where he turned himself in.  He went to the Federal pen, because he was true to his beliefs.
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Being a veteran is no guarantee of anything, although having VOLUNTEERED to serve is one indicator of character.
Having been a POW is no guarantee of anything, though how one behaved while being held captive is a good indicator of character.
A person may have an excellent character (honest, brave, steadfast, patriotic) and still be totally unsuited for the job of President. 
I volunteered for the Air Force in 1960, and served in the Air Defense Command, 95th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, at Andrews AFB just outside of DC, during the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis.  I remained at my post, while some ran for the hills, when we were expecting the bombers and the missiles.  Does this mean that I’m qualified to be president?  It absolutely does not!
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OTOH, I’d probably have done a better job than Georgie-boy.  He grabbed a posh, rich-white-boy post as a part-time F-102 pilot for the Texas ANG, defending Texas against Soviet bombers . . . and took a lot of time off even from that.
Rsmith, how DARE you compare Bush with Lincoln, Washington, Roosevelt, or even Wilson?
Have you no shame, sir?
At long last, have you no shame?

R. Smith, what is it that you find dishonorable about Jim Webb’s character? If its simply because Webb doesn’t kiss the ass of high-ranking Republicans (or Democrats for that matter) then that’s not really a character issue nor is it necessarily dishonorable.

Well obviously. Kerry showed us that wearing the uniform is no guarentee of character.

But McCains situation is a bit different. It’s not his service in the military but his behavior as a POW that tells about the mans character…especially considering he was offered early release but refused on principle.

And yes, anyone who even drifts by a left wing web site knows that, after being tortured…really tortured..McCain allowed himself to be used in propaganda films.

The difference between himself and his liberal contemporaries is that, they back stab freely. No torture is nessasary.

Just today the same piece of **** that accused the now aquitted Haditha Marines of being murderers…Jack Murtha….grudgingly admitted that the surge has worked but only because soldiers have been kicking down doors and killing innocents.

And Murtha was a Marine. He and Jim Webb both prove that military service is no guarentee of honorable character and it would be stupid to turn your back on either of them.

Apologies for double dipping on the subject of whether veteran status makes a good prez. Its just a minefield.
  My all time favorite among former military types who were lousy commander in chiefs has to be President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy. He was a former military officer and Secretary of war. He was a hawk like Senator, strong defense type. He was disdained by his best general , Robert E. Lee. He wanted to prolong a losing cause, the only war that counts in Richmond, the Civil war by guerilla warfare.
  Next, would be Andrew Jackson, hero of New Orleans in the War of 1812. He was tough on the Cherokees, Seminoles and Creeks. Sort of the Grenada of its day. In fact, Nazi war criminals cited American genocide against the Native Americans, as part of their defense at the Nuremberg War trials. Old Hickory, setting a warfare standard that Nazis could admire.
  If military records were the paramount virtue of a canidate, why don’t we just have a Latin American style junta ? Or perhaps a truimvarite of McCain, Obama and Hillary Clinton all wearing camoflage
togas ?

Being a veteran does not automatically make you a shoo-in for being a great president. For instance Ulysses S. Grant.
Clinton, on the other hand, a draft dodger, ran a pretty agressive foreign policy. Woodrow Wilson and FDR, two men with little or no military experince, got us through two world wars. George Bush, former pilot in the reserves, got us into Iraq. John F. Kennedy, former PT boat commander, stumbled reluctantly into Vietnam, mismanaged the Bay of Pigs
and almost got us into a nuculear war with the Soviets.
  My biggest worry if Obama got elected was that he would have to impress the right wing with his “toughness” by using military force in an over reaction scenario.
  Israelis have a joke that “every Israeli is a Prime Minister.“ Here in America, every man or woman whether they never served,served stateside as a cook,
is an arm chair general CIA agent Secretary of Defense all rolled into one.

Whats even more interesting than Normas first hand account is the account of the NVA generals who were in charge at the time and who have since come forward to say that they were on the verge (after Tet) of negotiating a North-South Korea type settlement until Cronkite and the “peace” movement began influencing American political decisions and gave them hope of victory and the ensuing slaughter.

And “peace” is what they got…on the backs of millions of butchered human beings who didn’t fit the progressive Viet or Cambodian leftist ideal.

Us??? We got disco, Pintos and Jimmy Carter.

This is what McCain understands…and Bush. The whining of pampered and spoiled brats has been the bane of every American leader since Washington. They whined and squeefed their yeast infected mouth holes then and they do it today. The difference is that today, we have someone who is willing to forsake his reputation among the trivial blabber crowd for the greater goal of national success. That’s both Bush and McCain.

And Lincoln.

And Washington.

And Roosevelt.

And Wilson.

All of these men were constantly attacked by the “I’ll roll over so you can sniff my surrender hole’ crowd.

The most important thing McCain learned as a prisoner is patience. The slow burn. The death by a thousand cuts. Our enemies know that. They fear him and support his rival because they count on the recent history (our forbearers were men) of Americans to grow tired and lose interest and start pouting about this weeks inconvenience. McCain sees the big picture…as does Bush…and neither cares what the polls of weak, sub standard men and women think.

And that’s what our enemies fear the most.

Anybody who volunteers to go into that type of combat has admirable courage. Doesn’t matter if he was tortured as a POW or not—the man’s got bawlz.

Doesn’t mean I necessarily want to see him as President, but the veteran status is one thing in his favor. That’s my take.

Hi Bart,

River Towers Norma here. Long time no see.

As far as McCain is concerned, his time was my time in the past when he had been shot down and imprisoned, and eventually came home.

When you experience history, as it is happening, there is the absence of deliberate misrepresentations of the event that somehow creep into the recounts after years have passes.

Unless voters are at least 55 years old or so, they will not be able to detect the disinformation being circulated now associated with McCain’s hero story.

Now the disinformation is being poured in in regards to how we as a country related to McCain at the time.

We were glad to see that he was being released but we also knew that he did not come back as a hero that had not opened his mouth and talked to some degree. From what was reported at the time, what he said was not really detrimental to our security.

McCain was imprisoned while we as a nation shrank from supporting a war that was killing our friends, children, and relatives and friends. The draft was sucking up all the eligible males through selective service and calling them to serve.

Some eligible males were running across our borders to keep from serving. There were desertions, and reports of families hiding there sons, even in the basements of their homes. It was a horrible war, and guerrilla tactics were so foreign to us that the soldiers were not prepared for the tactics the enemy perpetrated upon the soldiers.

The true tactics and actual body counts were withheld for years, inspite of some well meaning soldiers coming forward to reveal the truth concerning their missions there, in the interim.

So much more can be said of this Vietnam War, but what I am trying to get at is, McCain was imprisoned during the time America was openly resisting against the war.

What kept him focused to help make it through to get back home to the U.S.A, was a totally different thing than what was being experienced by the American public. He sees the Vietnam War from a prisoner’s standpoint. This is what is blurring his view of the Iraq War. He is still thinking as we as Americans felt before the Vietnam War entered into our psyche. Iraq War is not Vietnam. He won’t get the point.

Eh…they’re flinging turds in a desperate (and very stupid) attempt to get even for what they think was a smear of Kerry.

Unlike Kerry, McCains imprisonment is well documented, so well documented that he didn’t have to shoot his own footage as Kerry did. And he didn’t come back and join the anti war movement and make up lies about his comrades for the media either.

The problem the lefties are having is that what was said about Kerry was believable. Whats being said about McCain is not.

They have yet to realize that, in spite of what they may think, the country isn’t so much in love with liberalism as it is mad at republicans. Their new found support is a mile wide but barely an inch deep and obviously coordinated stunts like this only reinforce what many people instinctively know about Obama’s (and liberals in general)“support” for the military.

Not that they can stop themselves if they wanted to, mind you.

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