FUNDAMENTALLY ANTI-DEMOCRATIC

We all should thank Jimmy Breslin for getting it out in the open, for saying explicitly what until now has only been implicit: because George W. Bush used the Guard to duck Vietnam he has no right to send young men and women to fight and die in a foreign war since he used every opportunity he had to make sure he didn't have to do the same. That's what this has really been about all along and finally someone has said it. He didn't go when he had the chance, he has no right to order others to go now.

This argument is astonishingly dangerous, fundamentally anti-democratic, a challenge to the very essence of the American system. It would be one thing to say that not going to Vietnam demonstrates something about the President's character. I probably wouldn't in the end agree with that argument, given how long ago it was and the things he's done since, but I wouldn't have any problem with it on face as an argument. But this argument, which has been in the air since the beginning of the debate over Iraq in terms of who should be qualified to debate about the war now enters the debate as a form of qualifier for presidential service. Now it is said that only someone who has served in uniform can be truly qualified to be president (because remember, there can no such thing as a "peacetime" president: any president might be confronted with the need to order soldiers into battle.)

What happened to civilian control of the military? What happened to a system where we believe the military should always be subservient to the civilian side of the house? Always, and without exception. We don't teach young officers that they are legally and constitutionally obligated to follow the orders of their civilian superiors, most especially the Commander-in-Chief -- unless the people of this country are stupid enough to elect one without military service, or who didn't have military service that resulted in combat. This is outrageous. We believe in this country what we have believed from the beginning: that the choice to go to war is a political choice undertaken by political (that is civilian) leadership, and the qualification for that leadership is to have been elected not to have served in uniform.

To say otherwise violates profoundly the basic principles we teach our officer corps (and enlisted) and for good reason. I get that people are still offended by the President's carrier landing (although I still think some of that is because they interpreted what he was wearing as a "costume.") So don't vote for him. But if that decision was ill advised, if it was offensive to you because he did not serve in Vietnam when he had the chance, argue that. Don't argue about whether or not he has the right to send troops into battle. That happened when he was sworn in. (Yes, I know, only Congress can declare war. But the Commander in Chief can send troops into battle just the same. Which is probably why the last declaration of war was in 1945.)