Do War Heroes Make Good Presidents?
In conservative political discourse, it is now taken for granted that John McCain is a "war hero" and that "war heroes" make good presidents; in this respect, therefore, McCain is preferable to his Democratic challenger. (One wonders how the Right managed to lose sight of this self-evident truth when decorated Vietnam veteran John Kerry was running for president against pseudo- air national guardsman George W. Bush. Perhaps it was important to establish, as the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" attempted to do, that Kerry was not, in fact, a war hero.) As good as it sounds, the conservative assumption raises two questions. First, what qualifies someone as a "war hero"? Second, what virtues of character may the war hero be supposed to possess that will qualify him or her for the office of president?
We should note at the outset that the phrase "war hero" itself signifies a semantic drift, even a degradation of the ideal of heroism. The use of the term "hero" to indicate great achievement in areas other than war dates only from the later seventeenth century; our tendency to refer to victims of tragedy or mischance as "heroes" is a thoroughly modern phenomenon. I would argue that John McCain has been a beneficiary of this semantic drift, this broadening or watering down of the hero concept. His claim to the status of "war hero" rests not upon achievement-- he was not a distinguished pilot-- but upon suffering. If his performance in combat qualifies McCain as a war hero, then all soldiers are heroes; if there is something special about McCain, then it must be due to his time as a prisoner of war, and he can be called a "hero" only in the modern, dissipated sense of the term.
What, then, are the irreducible virtues of the modern war hero? Not physical gifts, or martial skill, or knowledge of the arts of war, or tactical or strategic abilities, for these would all be supposed only of the ancient "hero" who had distinguished himself in battle. The modern hero has suffered nobly in the context of war, and his or her virtues would be those revealed through suffering: courage, certainly, to have taken the risks that might lead to imprisonment, injury or death; tenacity or strength of will, to have endured physical and mental pain as a victim of war's mischance.
We are left with the question of whether courage and tenacity are sufficient qualifications for the presidency. Here we cross over into matters of opinion, but I would submit that our current Iraq debacle would not be improved in any fashion by the application of more courage and tenacity. Indeed, it could be argued that the United States has been courageous and tenacious to a fault; we would have done better, we would do better now, if we could display more caution and more prudence.
We should note at the outset that the phrase "war hero" itself signifies a semantic drift, even a degradation of the ideal of heroism. The use of the term "hero" to indicate great achievement in areas other than war dates only from the later seventeenth century; our tendency to refer to victims of tragedy or mischance as "heroes" is a thoroughly modern phenomenon. I would argue that John McCain has been a beneficiary of this semantic drift, this broadening or watering down of the hero concept. His claim to the status of "war hero" rests not upon achievement-- he was not a distinguished pilot-- but upon suffering. If his performance in combat qualifies McCain as a war hero, then all soldiers are heroes; if there is something special about McCain, then it must be due to his time as a prisoner of war, and he can be called a "hero" only in the modern, dissipated sense of the term.
What, then, are the irreducible virtues of the modern war hero? Not physical gifts, or martial skill, or knowledge of the arts of war, or tactical or strategic abilities, for these would all be supposed only of the ancient "hero" who had distinguished himself in battle. The modern hero has suffered nobly in the context of war, and his or her virtues would be those revealed through suffering: courage, certainly, to have taken the risks that might lead to imprisonment, injury or death; tenacity or strength of will, to have endured physical and mental pain as a victim of war's mischance.
We are left with the question of whether courage and tenacity are sufficient qualifications for the presidency. Here we cross over into matters of opinion, but I would submit that our current Iraq debacle would not be improved in any fashion by the application of more courage and tenacity. Indeed, it could be argued that the United States has been courageous and tenacious to a fault; we would have done better, we would do better now, if we could display more caution and more prudence.