Thoughts/questions about Kerry and Vietnam

The reason Bush's National Guard story attracts interest from the mainstream media (when the story itself is so obviously banal -- how many young men had somewhat checkered experiences in the Guard in the early 1970s when the war in Vietnam was winding down?) is purely a function of how big a deal Kerry made of his service in Vietnam. If the Democrats were running someone with no military experience, they wouldn't want to draw attention to the fact that Bush had served in the National Guard, had been on active duty for nearly two years learning to fly a fighter jet, had served without any questions whatsoever a minimum of four years in the Guard, more than fulfilling his "points" in each of those first four years, etc. But they have chosen Kerry, and the only part of his biography that is at all appealing to the majority of Americans is his Vietnam combat experience, so they accentuate it. But what is the logic of that?

1. Kerry saw some combat in Vietnam.
2. Kerry's combat experience qualifies him for the Presidency.

This is a syllogism that is missing the middle term. The only middle term that makes this logical is: "Combat experience qualifies someone -- anyone? -- for the Presidency."

Oh, really? How so? What is the ontological status of the experience of combat as opposed to, say, the experience of having been a heart surgeon (Frist), the experience of having been a movie star or union president or governor (Reagan), or, frankly, the experience of having flown fighter jets (Bush)? Does it make Kerry a deeper thinker? (No evidence.) Does it make Kerry a better husband or father? (No evidence either way.) Did it make him more selfless? (No evidence.) Has it given him better judgment? (No evidence.)

Put differently, what is the predictive value of the proposition "Kerry is a combat veteran, therefore..." what? What does that tell us about how he would act as President? Anything at all?

And when did the Democratic Party discover the ontological importance of combat experience, since it spent the last decade supporting a certified draft dodger in Bill Clinton?

The reality is that there are probably around 25 million American men who were approximately the right generation to have served in Vietnam, i.e., born between 1937 (27 at the time of the Gulf of Tonkin incident) and 1952 (18 at the time the draft was stopped). Of those, only about 2.5 million were in Vietnam. Of those, probably less than 10% saw any real combat since the ratio of support personnel to line troops in Vietnam was more than 10-to-1. (My brother-in-law, for instance, was a telephone technician during his 12 month tour of duty in Vietnam.) Is it really the Democratic Party's position that only that small sliver of the adult population can possibly be qualified to be President? And, of course, doesn't that mean they will have to change their views on having Hillary run in 2008?

Just some thoughts.