War Hero? No Thanks.

I was just looking at some random peeps on tv being interviewed about the race (duh), and every supporter of McCain keeps trumpeting his war experience, that he “knows and understands” the military, obviously was a war hero etc etc. And I guess in my mind if I don’t really think about it I’m like “well yeah, America likes to have the big-daddy tough war hero in charge, obviously.” Reptilian, I would think.

But after thinking about it, surprisingly the opposite has been true throughout recent history. First of all, look at McCain. Nobody disputes he’s a war hero. Comes from a long line of military men. His calling card is he's a tough guy military guy. And here he is, an underdog to someone who never spent a single minute in the military.

Dubya avoided the war by joining the Guard. Not only avoided the war, but apparently nobody has any idea where the hell he even was for a few months. And yet he beat TWO Vietnam war veterans – one a sitting vice president who had served on the Armed Services Committees, and the other a highly decorated war hero himself.

Clinton, same thing. Served ice cream sandwiches in the ROTC, yet beat out two different men who fought in WWII. One a sitting president whose fighter plane had been shot down, the other a vet who lost the use of his right hand in combat. Clinton took a lot of shit for avoiding Vietnam, but in the end nobody really cared.

Bush Sr, as I said was a heroic pilot…who would lose a second term to the draft-dodging Clinton. And to be honest, I don’t really remember his military service coming up a lot during his first race. Who’d he beat in 1988? A guy who to this day is still panned for trying to look tough in an Army tank.

Reagan, I have no idea if he even served. Don’t recall it coming up (just looked it up - turns out he was in "the 1st Motion Picture Unit" during WWII. I did not make that up, I swear.) Regardless, Reagan was a lot more famous for playing dress-up in the movies, and who’d he beat? Jimmy Carter, Navy Korean war vet.

You see my point…a surprising thing to realize, after I had given it ten seconds thought. Hell, the last real war hero we elected was John F. Kennedy, whom a lot of people prolly saw as much as a baby-faced elitist rich daddy's boy as a war hero...and he beat a guy who had fought in the South Pacific during WWII and then was Dwight Eisenhower's understudy for eight years. In 1960. Before Barack Obama was even born.

Ain't all this sumpin.