Commander-in-Chief

I don’t remember that title being thrown about so loosely like someone is ready to be the leader of the only superpower left in the world. Although someone must take the mantle, I don’t think there is one trait or a perfect combination of traits that makes someone the most qualified to be Commander-in-Chief. There is something so absurd about asking that question. Even though I support Obama, I wouldn’t say Obama is for sure the most ready to be Commander-In-Chief. Who is? What are the qualifications? Age? How long one was a POW? A minimum 35 years of “experience”? A Harvard Law degree? How many trips you have taken to Iraq?

The truth is that most candidates have built themselves up into this perfect candidate that will fulfill all the responsibilities they will take on as the leader of the free world. I don’t buy into that and neither does Obama who has already said this about a possible Obama presidency, “there will be mistakes.” That’s refreshing. Even though there have been many chances, we haven’t heard an admission like that from the President in eight years.

I don’t want a battle hardened Commando-in-Chief. I want a leader that is aware of their responsibilities and realizes that he or she will not be able to meet all of them, but will do their best to meet as many as they can by assigning those duties of Commander-in-Chief that they feel they are least qualified to perform to their cabinet members.

This is one reason that McCain’s stubbornness scares me. He is battle hardened, a real American hero. He knows war and torture and he has wrongly presumed that qualifies him for guiding us through the Iraq War. If he takes The White House, McCain will perhaps take on the mantle of Commander-in-Chief even more stubbornly than Bush has. What would this look like? For starters, this would mean a continuation of Bush’s foreign policy. It would also mean a stay-the-course philosophy in Iraq that will continue to boil down the meaning of this war to winning (killing every last terrorist in the Middle East) or losing (withdrawing troops).

What McCain won’t do is redefine the role of Commander-in-Chief, but I think that is precisely what we need the next leader of this country to do. We need an Ambassador-in-Chief, an ambassador to the American people, a person willing to take diplomacy to new levels by engaging in talks with nations that some consider so evil that to do so, to talk to these nations, would mean lowering the US to their level.

So where do I draw the distinction then between the remaining candidates? If you regularly read this blog you already know some of those distinctions, but I will try to do some more drawing of distinctions now.

For one, Obama is younger and less absorbed into Washington’s ways than Clinton. I think when faced with a national or international crisis a Clinton administration is more likely to take worn back roads to solve a problem. Obama seems likely to forge new paths to quell current crises and those to come. Being so young, he is the fresh candidate, but that is not bad because we need a fresh perspective, a new way to solve problems. Also, I think Obama will be more willing to change policies of the current administration and his own if they are found to be failing policies.

So, maybe it is a matter of who is most ready. But the question: who is most ready to be Commander-in-Chief, places too much importance on the role of leading this country’s army. That is an essential role, don’t get me wrong, but we need a leader who is going to be the Commander-in-Chief of not only the army, but first and foremost, the people of this country. This leader, I hope, will give the American people input more than once every four years like Dana Perino says the Bush administration does. This leader should check in on the pulse of the nation more often. And when they find that opinion is found to directly oppose the current policies the leader shouldn’t respond with “So?” like Dick Cheney did last week when reminded that most Americans unwaveringly do not believe the Iraq War was worth fighting.