Commanders in Chief without military experience

The Constitution sets relatively few requirements for holding the office of president of the United States: One must be a "natural born citizen" of the United States and must be 35 years old or older and must have resided in the United States for 14 years.

Few jobs in America have such a short list of job requirements, yet the country has survived for these 229 years since the adoption of the Constitution with presidents meeting only minimal job requirements. A college education is not required. Many of our most admired presidents — Lincoln, Washington, Truman, for example — would have been disqualified by such a requirement. No job experience is required, and the way we choose a president has little application to the overwhelming difficulty of managing a federal workforce in the millions, dealing with foreign countries, both friendly and adversarial, dealing with Congress, and serving as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. That's far different from traveling around the country asking people to vote for him/her.

A week of mourning for Sen. John McCain has brought to mind that last responsibility of the president. If military experience counted, McCain might have reached his dream of being elected president. He was the son and grandson of U.S. Navy admirals and had served with distinction as a Navy aviator.

For much of American history, service in the armed forces was a common trait among presidents. Washington, Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Harrison, U.S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, Franklin Pierce, William Henry Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt and others served in combat. In my own lifetime, Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush — every president until Clinton's election in 1992 — served in the military either in combat or stateside. Voters have not elected a military veteran, with the exception of George W. Bush, who only served in the Reserves and was never deployed, since the first President Bush lost the 1992 election to Clinton.

Although it's not a requirement for office, it's fair to ask what presidents without military experience are missing in their resumes. Military service teaches discipline, motivation, management, service, sacrifice and patriotism. It also exposes Americans to people with different backgrounds, advantages or disadvantages. In the years of a military draft, well-bred, well-connected college graduates rubbed shoulders with high school dropouts, and they learned to depend on these soldiers or sailors who were very different from themselves.

That experience would certainly enlighten the resident of the White House faced with a decision on military intervention or troop deployment. Presidents such as Washington, Jackson, Grant and others, who had experienced war up close and had been responsible for orders that resulted in deaths of brave, obedient soldiers, certainly would recognize the gravity of their actions in a way that someone without military experience would not.

In today's America, with only a small percentage of Americans voluntarily choosing a military career, it is difficult to find presidential aspirants with a military background. Veterans dominated the White House and congressional leadership from 1945 to the end of the century, but veterans are much rarer now in the halls of power.

Military experience does not inoculate presidents from bad decisions. George W. Bush foolishly ordered U.S. troops to invade Iraq in 2003 in search of non-existent "weapons of mass destruction." But President Kennedy, still scarred by injuries suffered when a Japanese ship sank his PT boat, rejected the advice of his generals and chose a successful blockade of Cuba in 1962 instead of an invasion to destroy Russian missiles there, a strategy that would result in high casualties and could escalate into nuclear war. Unlike the younger Bush, Kennedy had experienced combat and seen good men die all around him.

Sad and sorry presidential politics in social media

The presidential primaries had been settled for only hours before the attacks and counter-attacks began. I don't mean the presidential candidates or Democratic or Republican officials. I mean the people on social media passing along unfounded rumors and totally incredible (i.e., impossible to be believed) accusations about the "presumptive" party nominees.

Scrolling through Facebook (never a good place to get your news), I ran across a photo of Bernie Sanders holding up an obviously Photoshopped sign endorsing Donald Trump and what was alleged to be a news report (check the sources of these outlandish "news" items) claiming Chelsea Clinton had discovered that Bill Clinton is not her father. It reminded me of an unbelievably gullible woman who used to visit me at the newspaper office. She told me one day that Boris Yeltsen, then the president of Russia, was Bill Clinton's father. "Look at them," she said. "They look exactly alike."

Other social media posts are not quite so outlandish as these, but they are unapologetically harsh and mean-spirited in condemning the "other" candidate. Can we have a civil election in this atmosphere?

If there was ever a hope for a civil discourse and debate of key issues facing the nation and the world, that hope was quashed to dust by the Republican candidate debates, which focused more on political correctness, personal flaws and genitalia than on the major issues of the day.

Some of the fault lies with the news media, which increasingly sees news as entertainment with little concern for facts or seriousness, and with the American people, who have too little patience and too short an attention span to examine complex issues and serious topics.

Give 'em pablum; it's what they want.

Cruz and Trump and the evangelical vote

One of the most interesting things about this interesting election year is the popularity among evangelical Christians for candidates who talk about their Christian faith but don't demonstrate it.

Sen. Ted Cruz, who has made Christian activists a key to his election strategy, makes frequent mentions of the Bible and Christianity, but his tax returns show he doesn't put his money where his mouth is. It's not just that he gave less than 1 percent of his income to charity. He gave nothing ($00.00) to his home church, where he worships (but apparently doesn't read the Scripture or hear the sermon). He explained that he had concentrated his spending on securing the future for his family. How nice. He's investing in his daughters' future. Actually, he's demonstrating to his daughters and others his selfishness. With $5 million in income, he should be able to stash away enough to get his daughters through college, weddings and all that and still have a little left over to give to the church and the less fortunate.

Donald Trump, the boastful billionaire, has also touted his Christian faith, making appearances in churches and at Liberty University. But his reading at Liberty showed just how unfamiliar Trump is with the Scriptures. Given a "favorite" reading from II Corinthians, he told the audience he was reading from "Two Corinthians." Any kid in Bible school knows the accepted reference is to "Second Corinthians." Yet, this gaffe, like all of his other miscues, has not deterred his loyal fans who praise him as a godly man and shrewd businessman. It's probably true, as Trump boasted, that he could shoot down someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, and he wouldn't lose any support.

Trump's "Two Corinthians" reading was reminiscent of 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean's revealing response when he was asked what New Testament book was his favorite. He quickly replied "Job," which is in the Old Testament. The mistake revealed Dean, then the front-runner for the nomination, as someone severely lacking in biblical literacy.

Maybe biblical literacy doesn't matter anymore in this increasingly secular society, but the hypocrisy of candidates who woo Christian voters and claim to share their faith but neither practice that faith nor display any knowledge of that faith should turn truly religious voters away.

Strong credentials don't make good candidates

The announcement yesterday of two candidacies for president present an interesting question: Do smart, successful people make good presidential candidates, or good presidents?

Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, and Carly Fiorina announced Monday that they were running for the Republican presidential nomination. Carson had an illustrious career as a neurosurgeon, but anyone who is able to endure the challenges and rigors of medical school is, by definition, an intelligent and competent person. Fiorina had a successful career in the technology industry, rising to the top of the corporate ladder. In the dog-eat-dog competition of corporate rivalries and back-stabbing, that's quite an accomplishment.

But do either of these successful and admired individuals have what it takes to win the presidency? Unlike the worlds of medicine or technology, a presidential contest is a test of endurance, self-control and dogged determination. It requires what one potential candidate called the "fire in the belly." You have to want the presidency the way Jimmy Carter did. You have to be willing to sacrifice two years or more of your life, doing little else but raising money and appealing to voters, many of whom know little about governing or politics and only want you to commit to their own personal causes.

And if you are successful in committing yourself to winning your party's nomination and then the presidency, can you turn on a dime and govern the administration, working with a usually contentious Congress, to carry out the program that was your political platform. Some good candidates — Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter come to mind — were far better at running a campaign than they were at supervising the sprawling Executive Branch and contending with Congress. The two ventures require different skill sets, and it is rare to find someone capable to being good at both.

All of this leads to the question many Americans ask themselves: What kind of person would want to do what it takes to be president?