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Military experience = presidential loser??

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by spinning27, Jul 17, 2008.

  1. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    I think that takes too short a view, though.

    Take away Ike and who was the last general elected president?

    Harrison?
     
  2. Pastor

    Pastor Active Member

    I don’t think it has to deal with respect at all. I think a lot of people, after the having been drafted, have returned and wondered what exactly makes someone that has gone through it more of a leader. How does simply being in the military make someone more qualified than someone that never went?

    I think the drafting of so many people helped get this question placed on the table.
     
  3. Big Chee

    Big Chee Active Member



    There went David Stern's brilliant idea thinking the hire of a former military man to oversee the refs would bring his league some badly needed credibility.
     
  4. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    I'm still trying to think of the war that McCain won that backs up his claim that he knows how to win wars.
     
  5. ink-stained wretch

    ink-stained wretch Active Member

    The military of today is better trained, better armed and better motivated than any time since World War II.

    I suspect military service has as much to do with getting elected president as being left-handed. How many presidents have been left-handed? As many as have served in combat?

    I can think of but two combat veterans who served as president during a time of war: Ike, who made good on his promise of bringing an end to the Korean Conflict (yes, I know, no formal armistice has ever been signed) and Bush I, who did the job in Iraq and got the hell out.
     
  6. jgmacg

    jgmacg Guest

    Truman and Kennedy were both combat vets as well.
     
  7. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    One of the bad side effects of having someone with "inferior" military experience is that they feel they have to prove themselves to the military. Someone like McCain won't have to prove jack to them, he knows the bs that goes on with the military. Anyone think Dukakis could have gotten away with cutting the military budget like Pappy Bush did?
     
  8. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    It sure gets the respect of our tax dollars though.

    But I'll take your statement head on: No, the military probably doesn't get as much "respect" as it once did, and, from a logical perspective, you shouldn't be surprised. For one thing, the military doesn't respect its own soldiers. Look at the pay. Look at the extended tours in Iraq. Look at the insurance scam the Army ran on its own troops for years, signing them up in orientation meetings for policies with huge premiums that came right out of their paychecks, so they never saw the money, nor thought to cancel.

    Secondly, there is no draft, and without it, the ability for many Americans to identify with soldiers. When a giant chunk of American can not only opt out of military service, but any public service whatsoever, you're setting your government up to be ignored and filled with self-serving, shabby, automatons whose primary is simply to do the job with as little hassle or effort as necessary. That's the IRS, the DOT, the military, you name it.

    Finally, and this statement won't be popular, but: A portion of our military is made up of people who, frankly, you wouldn't respect in private life. They're young. They're poor. They're profane. They smoke and drink in mass quantities.

    Is that generalizing? Yeah, some. But visit Fort Bragg sometime. Stand on the main drag down there, and just count the number of strip joints from any one spot. The modern military life has proven to be, in study after study, case after case, not a particularly well-rounded one. The image the media portrays, and it is not inaccurate, is a soldier who returns from Iraq exhausted, broken and emotionally unable to process what happened over there. It is not heroic. It's sad.

    And it's hard to respect what you pity.
     
  9. PopeDirkBenedict

    PopeDirkBenedict Active Member

    The military "made" the following presidents:

    --Washington
    --Jackson
    --WH Harrison
    --Taylor
    --Grant
    --Ike

    Military experience got Hayes, Garfield, B Harrison and McKinley elected. But that was a very specialized era, so to speak, where waving the "bloody shirt" of the Civil War was the ticket to getting elected.

    The biggest reason for the lack of military heroes as president is that since Ike, we have probably only had two major military heroes: Stormin Norman and Colin Powell. Neither of them had the inclination to go for it. No commander made their political bones with Nam and Petraeus is the only one with a chance out of Iraq.

    I agree with Zeke. This thread is correlation without causation. Considering the source, I'm not surprised.
     
  10. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    You could argue that JFK and maybe Teddy Roosevelt belong on that list.
     
  11. PopeDirkBenedict

    PopeDirkBenedict Active Member

    Yeah, military service helped guys like Truman, JFK, Teddy. But they were all Senators or Governors before they became President. The six I listed became president entirely because of military heroics.
     
  12. ink-stained wretch

    ink-stained wretch Active Member

    To quote Alma: "They're young. They're poor. They're profane. They smoke and drink in mass quantities."

    Sounds like newspaper people to me.
     
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