Hillary and 35 Years of Experience

[clevalley (Premo)]

Originally Posted by itsbob

Wow, that was a trick.. a member of a non-deployable training squadron to POW?? Sounds like the Navy was trying to do the right thing for him after spending HOW many years as a POW??

So McCain wasn't in the NAtional Guard, DID go to Vietnam, and this is what you come up with?? Unfriggin believable..

Name ONE leadership position Hillary has held.. low level.. mid level.. ANY!??

I am not sure what it is about McCain - but there is something about him which scares me... I do not know, but it is something - just a gut feeling - Hell, they all scare me for that matter...

I agree, he is the closest of the bunch to be a CINC, but I think his time in Washington has made him more of an a-typical politician than anything else..

[clevalley (Premo)]

Originally Posted by Bruzilla

None of my family has ever been to medical school, but I've had an operation before. I guess that makes me your next pick to do surgery on you right? None of the Dems have a military background, but McCain is worse: he served but served very poorly.

Where, on record, did McCain serve poorly?

Originally Posted by Bruzilla

I keep being amazed by the number of people who think just because someone joins the military that they are somehow military or leadership geniuses. There's no differences between military and business people... only about one in ten is worth a crap. The rest just get by. McCain is one of the nine who was found lacking by the military and shown the door, which to me is worse than not serving at all.

McCain retired as a Navy Captain right? Which means he had sometype of leadership training, not a genius maybe, but he is skilled to some degree.

Also - why the one in ten worth a crap?? Do you really think our military personnel are that bad? I hardly think so and I am sure there are others here who strongly disagree. Stand at the gates of any of our local bases with a sign which reads that...

[ylexot (Premo)]

Clinton's experience challenged

[clevalley (Premo)]

Originally Posted by ylexot

Clinton's experience challenged

Oooops! sorry about that!

In reading the article you site, there is some interesting reading down near the bottom;

Rival Barack Obama cultivates a squeaky-clean image and referred to his work as a "civil rights attorney" at Thursday's Los Angeles debate. He didn't mention other work he did during his decade at Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland, a small Chicago law firm, helping craft housing deals involving millions of dollars in public subsidies.

I wonder if the republicans are going to swoop in on this and discredit Obama if/when he gets the nomination... you would think they are going to go after his image and lack of leadership time on the hill.

[ImnoMensa]

Originally Posted by awpitt

I think it’s a stretch when Hillary claims 35 years of experience; however, one can’t say she was sitting home watching soaps for the last 35 years either. She was a congressional legal council during Watergate. She was a partner at the Rose Law firm. She’s been on various corporate boards such as Wal-Mart’s. She worked with the Children’s Defense Fund and chaired the Legal Service Corp. Plus First lady of Arkansas and the U.S.

Now, it would probably be easier to claim 35 years experience as a member of the House or Senate but Hillary has been involved with public policy in varying degrees for a long time. Maybe not quite 35 years but she has been out there.

So in all that time what did she do right? A list of her failures and corrupt practices would fill the bandwidth I am allowed. By the way she didnt work for Walmart for free.

Clinton Remained Silent As Wal-Mart Fought Unions,
ABC News: Clinton Remained Silent As Wal-Mart Fought Unions
Clinton has been endorsed for president by more than a dozen unions, according to her campaign Web site, which omits any reference to her role at Wal-Mart in its detailed biography of her.

[Lenny]

Originally Posted by ImnoMensa

So in all that time what did she do right? .

...well, she made several thousand dollars one weekend making a well-timed investment in cattle futures. You have to wonder why vegmom doesn't biatch about that.

Originally Posted by clevalley

Where, on record, did McCain serve poorly?

McCain retired as a Navy Captain right? Which means he had sometype of leadership training, not a genius maybe, but he is skilled to some degree.

Also - why the one in ten worth a crap?? Do you really think our military personnel are that bad? I hardly think so and I am sure there are others here who strongly disagree. Stand at the gates of any of our local bases with a sign which reads that...

John McCain has never released the fitness reports, aka FITREPs, that all officers receive and that serve as a grading of their service each year, so what I know about him comes from two sources: his own words and how the Navy treated him.

McCain has admitted that he finished fifth from the bottom of his class at Annapolis. He has also admitted that he was a Century Club member, meaning that each year at the academy he earned more than 100 demerits for poor conduct or discipline. If you know anything about the USNA, you know that Century Club members usually don't make it through two years of this performance level, yet alone four, so I'm guessing his dad and grand-dad, both distinguished admirals, probably helped him out. What is for absolute certain is that guys who finish fifth from the bottom of the class never, ever, get highly coveted orders to flight training. Orders get picked by class ranking, so the guys at McCain's level usually get horrible orders not pick of the litter ones.

He gets to flight training in 1958, and (as per his bio) spends the next two and a half years as a "navy pilot in training". For the record, the length of the pilot training program back then was 12-18 months depending on what aircraft you were learning, so why did it take him 30 months? Only his records know for sure, but we know he crashed a plane in 1958 while trying to land. He completed training as a "below par" pilot, which isn't a big deal as accidents will happen. But in 1960 he was flying too low over the Iberian Peninsula and clipped some power lines, which almost resulted in another crash. In 1965, he snags a plane to fly up to an Army/Navy game, and crashes that one as well. I've known a whole bunch of naval aviators while an aircrewman, and I knew very few who had ever crashed a plane once, yet alone crashed three times.

When Vietnam rolled around, McCain was just another average officer, and McCain has himself said that throughout his naval career he had real problems in dealing with authority figures or following orders, which growing up with a dad and grand-dad who were admirals and I'm sure pushed him to be one since birth, I can understand why. Guys like this make for poor students at military academies, and poor aviators, and poor officers too.

So... McCain gets bailed out of jam after jam by his family connections, and then gets shot down over Vietnam. All of us who serve, operate under a Code of Conduct that we are to follow if we are captured. It details what we can and can't do, but is not a suicide pact. We are expected to follow it as much as we can, but with the realization that if we are beaten or tortured enough, we all can crack. McCain has admitted that he cracked, and he did violate the code while a POW. I don't fault him for this as he was not alone in that regard, but the truth is that a lot of guys who were in the same position didn't crack.

What is the most interesting aspect of McCain's career comes after his time as a POW. At the time he was a celebrity, and the Navy tried to give him extra consideration as they did all former POWs, and help them out as much as they could. McCain was sent to the Naval War College as a stash job while he recovered from his injuries, and was later named the executive and later commanding officer of VA-174, which was the A-7 Corsair training squadron for the Navy. What's really interesting here is that the normal progression is for XOs and COs of training squadrons to first be the skipper of fleet command, but McCain was never given one of those... just the admin command.

While the CO of VA-174, there was a lot of talk about McCain abusing flight rules by using aircraft for personal flights, and that he was fratenizing with female sailors in the command. To the best of my knowledge he was never charged with anything, but it is on the record that he was transferred to the Senate Liaison Office, which sounds like a really important job but it really a jo you send someone when they can't be advanced any higher and just need to finish serving out their 20 years so they can retire. It's also on the record that Admiral James Holloway, a close friend of McCain's dad, was the one who requested that McCain be promoted to captain AND stashed at the Senate, so my guess is that Holloway told his friend that he would see his son made captain, but his carreer was over. If McCain had been seen as fit for higher command, he would have never been sent to serve drinks to Senators. He would have gone to a joint command, command of a shore station, minor surface command, etc.

So, McCain's command experience was as the CO of a stateside training squadron that would never be made to deploy into combat, and gave him command of about 400 men and women. That sounds good until you consider that the skipper of most medium surface ships has about 1,000+ folks under him, the skipper of a carrier has 5,000+ folks, an area commander can have 10,000+ folks, etc. So McCain's claim that his time as a squadron commander qualifies him to be the CinC is like the manager of a McDonalds saying he's ready to be Ray Kroc.

[itsbob (Premo)]

And again.. I ask.. McCain was a Capt in the Navy.. neither Hillary nor Obama were even shift leaders at McDonalds. Who has more leadership experience of the three?

Neither Hillary nor Obama were E-1's let alone an O-6.. again..

So, what's your point? Jimmy Carter was a naval officer in the cream-of-the-crop duty of nuclear submarine officer, and didn't he turn out to be a cracker jack CinC. Lincoln never served, nor did F. Roosevelt or Truman, so what?

I don't fault Huckabee, Clinton, or Obama for not serving as the mere fact of donning a uniform DOES NOT qualify anyone to be anything. I have known hundreds of naval and USMC officers. Some were outstanding, some were horrible, and the majority were average. I've been asked how I can say that 90% of naval officers are not great leaders. The truth is that the higher you go in the military, the fewer the billets. And the higher you go, the more closely and thoroughly you are evaluated and tested, so only the truly best officers get advanced. There are several career milestones for a naval officer. The first is when they reach O-4. Pretty much anyone who isn't a total screwup (or has a dad & grad-dad who are admirals) will make O-4. Once you make O-4 you usually have to pass a screening for command to make O-5. Once you make O-5 and get a unit command, your performance is closely watched to see if you should move on or get out. Those who pass muster at the unit commander level go on to higher command, those who don't get stashed until they can retire. McCain got stashed, so what does that tell us? That his tour of duty as a commander met the minimum requirements, but was not representative of someone who should be entrusted with higher command.

Yes, you can highlight the fact that McCain was a captain when he retired, and you can say he's so much better than Obama or Clinton because at least he served, but the bottom line, the undisputable bottom line, is that the Navy found John McCain unfit for any command higher than unit level. If the Navy, who knows this guy's record better than any group, found him unfit for high command, why should voters find him fit?

[itsbob (Premo)]

Originally Posted by Bruzilla

So, what's your point? Jimmy Carter was a naval officer in the cream-of-the-crop duty of nuclear submarine officer, and didn't he turn out to be a cracker jack CinC. Lincoln never served, nor did F. Roosevelt or Truman, so what?

I don't fault Huckabee, Clinton, or Obama for not serving as the mere fact of donning a uniform DOES NOT qualify anyone to be anything. I have known hundreds of naval and USMC officers. Some were outstanding, some were horrible, and the majority were average. I've been asked how I can say that 90% of naval officers are not great leaders. The truth is that the higher you go in the military, the fewer the billets. And the higher you go, the more closely and thoroughly you are evaluated and tested, so only the truly best officers get advanced. There are several career milestones for a naval officer. The first is when they reach O-4. Pretty much anyone who isn't a total screwup (or has a dad & grad-dad who are admirals) will make O-4. Once you make O-4 you usually have to pass a screening for command to make O-5. Once you make O-5 and get a unit command, your performance is closely watched to see if you should move on or get out. Those who pass muster at the unit commander level go on to higher command, those who don't get stashed until they can retire. McCain got stashed, so what does that tell us? That his tour of duty as a commander met the minimum requirements, but was not representative of someone who should be entrusted with higher command.

Yes, you can highlight the fact that McCain was a captain when he retired, and you can say he's so much better than Obama or Clinton because at least he served, but the bottom line, the undisputable bottom line, is that the Navy found John McCain unfit for any command higher than unit level. If the Navy, who knows this guy's record better than any group, found him unfit for high command, why should voters find him fit?

But what leadership job.. ANY, military or civilian did either Hillary of Obama EVER have??

They have never had any real responibility.. no "The buck stops here".. they've never had to make a real desicion that would effect more then the people in their immediate circle.

They've always worked for or been married to a leader but they've never been themselves.