It's clear that President-elect McCain will run with this major theme: Barack Obama is not qualified to be president because he didn't serve in the military. For example, when Obama praised McCain's service and wondered why he refused to support the new GI Bill, McCain shot back, "I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did."
The "religious test" prohibited by the Constitution has been seriously eroded by modern politics. But what McCain implies is more dangerous still to the future of the nation: that only soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are really qualified to lead the nation, particularly in wartime.
So many contradictions and hypocrisies here. Neither Woodrow Wilson nor Franklin Roosevelt were veterans, yet they led the nation in the two world wars. And where was McCain's outrage over the neo-con chicken-hawks who took draft deferments during Vietnam, notably Dick Cheney (five deferments). Obama was a child during Vietnam. And what of the swift-boated John Kerry?
But the biggest concerns cut to the core of the American republic. They could reveal McCain not merely as a misinformed and misguided candidate, but a potentially dangerous one.
The Founders studied and worried over Athens and, especially, Rome, wondering what killed republics. One danger, of course, was the passion of the mob. Yet another was the emergence of a tyrant, particularly under the pressure of wartime. This was evident in the death of the Roman republic, replaced by military emperors. They sought to remove this temptation in several ways, particularly with civilian supremacy over the military. The president would be commanded in chief. Yet war-making would be a responsibility shared with Congress.
This buffer came under sustained pressure with the rise of a huge military and national security complex to fight the Cold War. It never went away and has gained dangerous traction with the so-called war on terror, led by a former rich kid who bugged out in the Texas National Guard. Torture, rendition, warrantless wiretapping on American citizens... Republicans have relentlessly played on voters' fears. The Founders would have recognized this human tendency. Franklin said, They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
The United States was served by several generals-turned-presidents. All followed the small-r republican example of George Washington, governing prudently as civilians and then returning to civilian life. We've had only one general-president during the vastly more dangerous era of the national security state: Dwight Eisenhower. Ike wasn't even sure whether he was a Democrat or a Republican; both parties courted him. His two terms, as a Republican, were marked by centrist, bipartisanship (with the Master of the Senate, LBJ) and peace. Labor leader George Meany famously remarked that during Ike's presidency, everything was booming "but the guns."
Yet McCain promises only more war, while defending the debacle in Iraq. The New York Times ran a telling profile of McCain, and how he turned down an admiral's flag (both his father and grandfather had been admirals) so he could leave the Navy to enter politics, representing his new wife's home state. The Founders might have read this and pronounced their worst warning: ambition. Serving as a naval aide in the Senate,
Mr. McCain was captivated, recalled Jeffrey Record, then an aide to former Senator Sam Nunn, the hawkish Georgia Democrat. “He thrives on competition, and he thrives on political combat,” Mr. Record said. “He saw the glamour of it. I think he really got smitten with the celebrity of power.”
Does this mean McCain will become an American caesar? Probably not. But the Constitution is killed by a thousand cuts. And McCain's implication, especially if it resonates with the American people, will pave the way for one.
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