Skip to content

Miniblog #98: Should the President Be a Veteran?

by Carson T. Clark on January 30, 2012

Popular wisdom says that our presidents should be military veterans. I’m gonna be honest, though. I’m sure this puts me in the minority opinion, but a military background does little for me in terms of one’s competency for being president. Does it mean he or she is less qualified for the Commander-in-Chief aspect? Yeah, probably. But so long as our elected officials aren’t omniscient and omnipresent, every one of ‘em will have strengths and weaknesses reflecting his or her life circumstances. A person who has a military background may well be deficient in, say, diplomacy… or economics… or education… law… You see my point. Oh, and by the time a person has lived long enough to accumulate real experience in most all these fields you’d be looking at having presidents in their 80s, e.g. Ron Paul. And the physical/mental decline as well as the lingering shadow of death at that age is, to my mind, more troublesome than any of these other deficiencies. Suddenly the VP issue comes rushing to the forefront. For example, it was the specter of a Palin presidency that caused me to shift my vote to Obama in ’08……. What think you?

From: Uncategorized
  • Clark Bailey

    Age is something to look into.Almost a complete and utter incompetency is as well.

  • Rob Jeffrey

    I agree with you. It is impossible for someone to have a background in every area a president will be responsible for. That is why I think their Cabinet is so important. P.S. I’m with ya on the whole Palin and V.P. choice.

  • Jodi

    Look to the Roman empire to see how that idea worked out. The “Tyrranus” was the guy who saved everyone from something awful, whether an invasion or a plague, but when he could not save them from the next awful thing, he was out on his ear. Or, rather, dead. Many emperors were military leaders, but they could not survive the political infighting of the Senate, nor the constant threat of assassination.

    I think the best president would be a person who is an excellent diplomat, whose talents lie in getting people to work together, and who is wise in choosing his/her advisers. Other attributes would include self-confidence, humility, willingness to listen, and savviness in handling people with their own agendas. I would like some honesty too. That would be nice.

    So…when is Jesus going to run for president? (hehe…)

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=163800401 Carson T. Clark

      Yeah, it doesn’t seem like we’ve had a former diplomat for a president in a long time. I’m sure there’s been others, but Thomas Jefferson is the only one that readily comes to mind. Pretty sure there hasn’t been one since at least the Great Depression.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=872015643 Ken Leonard

      The elder George Bush was ambassador to China and the UN.

    • Jodi

      Sadly, these days, an ambassador barely makes a blip on the radar. I was sad to see Jon Huntsman drop otu.

  • http://jamesbradfordpate.blogspot.com/ James Pate

    It’s ironic that you wrote this today. This morning, I was thinking about the 2008 Republican National Convention, and how a big theme was that we should vote for McCain because he was a POW in Vietnam.

  • Tony Dahlman

    You have a straw man going here. While I agree that it is a majority opinion that military experience is a plus for a Presidential candidate, I don’t think that it is anywhere close for the American people a trait that completely compensates for weaknesses in diplomacy, education, economics, law, etc.

    Experience in the military teaches not only perspective on being Commander-in-Chief leadership, discipline and teamwork; all traits that extend well into politics.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=163800401 Carson T. Clark

      I don’t disagree with anything in the second paragraph.

    • http://twitter.com/tonydahlman Tony Dahlman

      To support my point in the first paragraph, two of the last three Presidents have had no military service at all. The one that did used a much easier assignment in the Texas Air National Guard to avoid being sent to Vietnam.

      In the five elections that have produced the last three Presidents, the major party candidate with the superior military resume all went on to lose the general election. In 2012 it is appearing extremely likely that neither major party candidate will have any military experience at all.

      Whatever “popular wisdom” says sure isn’t producing at the ballot box.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=872015643 Ken Leonard

    I think that when people talk about their generalized ideal candidate, then they like military service, but it doesn’t play out in real life.

%d bloggers like this: