Sooner or later, someone must suffer the slings and arrows of the political-correctness crowd and state flatly that this country is not ready for a woman president…there, it’s said, and the devil take the hindmost. This, however, is even truer now than it would have been a mere 20 years ago, not least because of Kuwait, Saddam, 9/11, and Osama bin Laden. Throw in the little punk in North Korea and the hallucinating Ahmadinejad in Iran, and the statement is even more compelling.
The reason has nothing to do with intellect; rather, it is simply that the world is more dangerous now than at any time since World War II, necessitating a U.S. president who is militarily minded and mean/strong enough to respond to that mindset, characteristics not generally attributed to the fairer sex. The PC notion of unisex that has driven the culture for too long is exploded in the harsh reality, at least harsh to some, that men and women think differently – not intellectually – when physical contact is necessary in order to accomplish an objective, more especially the objective of physical survival, which actually does belong to the fittest/strongest and may hinge on sanguinary rather than benign efforts. Peace actually is the absence of war or threat of annihilation.
More to the point, the commander-in-chief should have a working knowledge of the military – active duty experience, though not necessarily in combat. It would be preposterous to think a general would order his men into action if he has no military experience himself. This is no less true with respect to the presidency, since ordering people into harm’s way inevitably means that some will suffer and/or die. This fact would also disqualify many men.
Senator Clinton is the presumptive democrat nominee as of now, and one shudders to think of her as the commander-in-chief, the very paradigm of what any commander should not be. There may be other women who would more nearly aspire realistically to the top job, but she is the only one of acclaim presently, so she must be the example. She was dumb enough to tell General Petraeus in the recent Senate hearing (though not a member of the committee conducting the hearing) that he was a liar.
Clinton knew better than that, but she felt she had to say that in order to exhibit her “manhood,” ergo, her bona fides to be a military commander. Tell off a general with 33 years of service and make points with MoveOn.org! But Hillary vis-à-vis Petraeus was no Harry Truman vis-à-vis General MacArthur. She resembled a flea attacking an elephant. Anyone that dumb, whether man or woman, should not even be considered for the nomination.
What Clinton actually exhibited was her loathing for everything Petraeus stood for…the same loathing actually enunciated by her husband when he was dodging Vietnam. He later allowed the military to flounder for the eight years of his presidency, first trying to unsuccessfully insert homosexuals into a military whose leaders absolutely rebelled at that, and then placing women in combat, not to mention the folly of sex-integrated boot camps. He was a disgrace, as she would be, since she’s a chip off the old “two-for-one-package” of 1992. Worse, she wouldn’t know a salute from an indecent gesture, much less what an RPG is.
Naysayers might immediately bring up the names of Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher, the former head of Israel (in the 70s during the Yom Kippur War) and the latter the head of the British government in the 80s during the Falklands incident. Both the Israelis and the British were victorious then, with the full weight of the U.S. government behind them…but not necessarily because of it; however, Israel exists today only because of this country, despite the utter un-believability (supposedly) that the Israelis would go nuclear before they would go under. They would.
Meir presided over a handful of people and Thatcher, considering the commonwealth as on its own, presided over a small country. Actually, neither woman had any options other than the ones exercised and no leverage worldwide. This is not the case with the United States, upon which entire continents of nations depend for stability throughout the world, notwithstanding the whining of congressional democrats about the disfavor in which this country is held worldwide. In any case, a commander-in-chief who is loved by the world is probably in the wrong line of work.
Clinton doesn’t know what she thinks about Iraq, which to her is just a political consideration anyway. Kerry-like, she was for it before she was against it. She has no plan for conducting or ending it, other than opposing the plans du jour designed by other democrats to get votes. The plan(s) change all the time as the polls are conducted.
Clinton is the example for the claim of this piece, and justifiably so. She exhibits the lack of toughness/judgment necessary to maintain survival, just as did her husband, also with no military experience or even interest. There is a roughness/toughness/sanguinity men have instinctively, but is lacking in women. It is necessary to survival. Where a woman might “dialog” with the enemy while he arms, as Clinton has suggested she would do (not to mention the rest of the democrat “seven dwarves”), a man would say “bring it on,” and there’s a time and place for that. It’s a lead-pipe cinch that if either Clinton had been president on 9/11, there would have been no Afghanistan action and the U.S. ambassador to the UN would still be caterwauling in New York for “somebody to do something.”
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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