Quote:
the G-man said:
The simple fact of the matter is that you can't stereotype the military in this way...good or bad...some former soliders may be less willing to lead us in...others might be more willing.
You need to judge candidates as individuals, and upon their views.
I do judge them as individuals and based on their views. Military capability and experience is not the one and only way I'd use to judge a candidate worthy of the presidency (I guess I didn't make this clear earlier - my bad). Of course I'd take their stance on the issues into account. But in the single case of military leadership capability, I'd honestly be more likely to count on a combat veteran or a military veteran than somebody who has not served or who has not seen combat - if I had nothing else to work with.
You're right that non-military presidents have been successful at leading this country in a time of war. But we can say that they were successful or not succesful because we have history to verify that claim. Had we been living in their times, and they were unproven presidents, could we accurately determine how much we'd count on them in a time of war? The only way I'd accurately be able to determine that sort of thing for current or future presidential candidates is to be able to know the future, and none of us can.
My criteria for trusting a candidate to lead us into war (and just wars) may not be a perfect one, but until I can come up with a better one, it's all I've got.
"Well when I talk to people I don't have to worry about spelling." - wannabuyamonkey
"If Schumacher’s last effort was the final nail in the coffin then Year One would’ve been the crazy guy who stormed the graveyard, dug up the coffin and put a bullet through the franchise’s corpse just to make sure." -- From a review of Darren Aronofsky & Frank Miller's "Batman: Year One" script
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