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No One Asked Me But…

by Dr. Larry Moses
Posted July 9, 2008


No one asked me but…Retired General Wesley Clark, who had aspiration of being the Democrat Presidential candidate and now would be Vice-President if so chosen, made this statement about Republican Presidential candidate John McCain; “I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces as a prisoner of war. And he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn’t seen what it’s like when diplomats come in and say, ‘I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to get this point through or not.’ …I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”

If elected, McCain would not be the first Naval Aviator shot down in a fighter plane to become President. The first President Bush has that honor.

Many people are upset at the General for this observation. I am not sure what the stir is all about. A retired general is making a statement about whether or not Naval Captain John McCain’s military experience qualifies him to be president. I am a bit surprised he didn’t attack him for graduating from the Naval Academy rather than West Point.

I don’t see here where this is any attack on the character of John McCain. It is merely an attack of a political opponent on the qualifications of a man who would be President. McCain’s military record is surely fair game as he is the one who used it to his advantage in the campaign first.

I am not going to argue about John McCain’s heroic service to his country; he is definitely a better man than I. But the statement got me thinking: “What does qualify one to be President?”

Fancying myself as a bit of a Constitutionalist, I first went to Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 4 of The Constitution of United States: “No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.” Surely John McCain qualifies constitutionally.

I then began to explore ideas as to what the office of Presidency of the United States required to be successful. The Personality and the President Project authored by psychologist Steven J. Rubenzer, and co-authors Thomas Fachingbauer and Deniz S. Ones, analyzed the assessments of more than a hundred presidential experts. The experts were asked to analyze a five year period of each president’s life prior to taking office. This was to avoid the influence filling the office might have had on their personality. After isolating the personality traits of the individual presidents, they then went to other experts who had listed the presidents as to greatness to see what the great presidents had in common personality-wise. They found that the great presidents tended to be stubborn and disagreeable. They also found the great ones were “more extroverted, open to experience, assertive, achievement striving, excitement seeking and more open to fantasy, aesthetics, feelings, actions, ideas and values”. They also found historically great presidents have been “low on straightforwardness, vulnerability and order”.

Ambition was found to be one of the best correlates of greatness in the oval office, and competence was also a big predictor of presidential success. Don’t look for a president to have a neat desk; disorganization seems to be an asset for greatness.

I once had a boss complain about my messy desk. He stated a cluttered desk was the sign of a cluttered mind and his desk was always empty. I asked him if that was a sign of an empty mind.

It comes as no surprise that recent Presidents are more extroverted than the early Presidents. This is probably due to the role of the media. Great Presidents seem to not necessarilyy share common bonds. Both Washington and Lincoln are considered great presidents and other than the fact that they were both tall, they had little else in common.

Some interesting characteristics of those who have led the Nation are as follows: The first eight presidents were born British Subjects. Nine Presidents never attended college. Of those who did attend college the most (6) attended Harvard and the second most (5) attended Yale. Twenty – four Presidents served in Congress, three in the Continental Congress. All the Presidents claimed church affiliation the most common is Episcopalian and second most common is Presbyterian. The ancestry of the Presidents is limited to seven nationalities or combinations thereof: Dutch, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Swiss, or German. The oldest elected President was Ronald Reagan (69). The youngest elected President was John Kennedy (43) but the youngest to serve as President was Theodore Roosevelt who succeeded to office at the age of 42 when President McKinley was assassinated. The tallest President was Abraham Lincoln at six foot four inches tall and the shortest was James Madison who was only five feet four inches. Fourteen Presidents served as Vice-President. There was only one bachelor President; James Buchannan. Five Presidents remarried after the death of their first wife but only Ronald Reagan was divorced. Six Presidents had no children but John Tyler made up for them with fifteen. One President served who was not elected, Gerald Ford. His Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller, was also appointed. Four Presidents lost the popular vote but won the office through the Electoral College; John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison and George W. Bush.

Presidential occupations included the following: (some Presidents fall into more than one category) one surveyor, tailor, farmer, mayor, sheriff, newspaper man, haberdasher, author, actor, Director of CIA and one baseball team owner. One served as Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of War, Secretary of Commerce, and five served as Secretary of State. Two were Presidents of a University, Wilson and Eisenhower were President of Princeton University. Three were public officials all of their business lives. While many served in the military at lesser ranks, twelve attained the rank of General in the United States Army. Twenty served as state governors and twenty-six were lawyers.

Do John McCain’s military heroics qualify him for the presidency? No more than Barrack Obama’s being raised by his grandparents in Kansas qualifies him. What qualifies both men is the provision of Article II Section 1 Paragraph 4 of the United States Constitution.

Neither man has the experience necessary to fill the role. The only people in America that have the experience are, in no particular order, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, George H. Bush and Jimmy Carter. Now which one of those do you want? Sorry, Hillary being first lady does not count as experience being President; even if you did wear the pant-suit in the family. No matter what Al Gore would like to believe; neither does being the Vice-President unless you are Dick Cheney who probably made more presidential decisions that George W. Bush did these last eight years.

Thought of the week…The presidency has made every man who occupied it, no matter how small, bigger than he was; and no matter how big, not big enough for its demands. – Lyndon B. Johnson.

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