That is why this week we have seen the McCain campaign react so defensively and angrily at what former NATO Commander Gen. Wesley Clark said on Sunday. All Clark said was that being a fighter pilot and being shot down in Vietnam did not qualify him to be President. He did not dishonor or smear McCain’s military service. Indeed, he honored it, just as Barack Obama has done time and again during this campaign.
But the point remains, McCain’s military service does not qualify him to be President. The only qualifications to be President are that the candidate be a thirty-five year old citizen of the United States who was born in this country. That’s it. Don’t believe me, then look it up yourself in the Constitution. Yeah, remember that quaint little document?
Now, military service adds to your resume that voters can consider. But lack of it does not disqualify you from the Presidency. Some of our most successful Presidents did not serve in uniform, namely Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Meanwhile, some of our worst Presidents did serve in uniform. So military service, while not being a qualification for the Presidency, also does not predict success in the Presidency.
Yet the McCain campaign has been, up to now, asserting that the Senator’s honorable service somehow preordains that not only he is qualified to be President, he should be President because of it.
So that begs the question….how does it qualify you to be President?
McCain became visibly angry when I asked him to explain how his Vietnam experience prepared him for the Presidency.
“Please,” he said, recoiling back in his seat in distaste at the very question.
He gets angry because he can’t answer the question. Or he doesn’t want to give the honest answer to that question, which is “it really doesn’t.” No one is questioning McCain’s service. No one is smearing him. If we were, we would form a 527 group called “Downed Fighter Pilots For Truth” and make up lies about his service, like Republicans did to fellow Vietnam veteran John Kerry in 2004. All we are asking is how his honorable service qualifies him to be President. And it is a fair and legitimate question, since McCain is campaigning on his service.
I dare say McCain’s anger at being questioned on this disqualifies him to be President, for if he angers so easily at a simple question, we cannot trust him to make rational decisions at any time.