One of the striking similarities between George W. Bush and John McCain is their blatant contempt for education and “thinking” in general. It amazes me that the Republican Party wants the US of A to be led by dunces for twelve consecutive years.

George graduated from Yale with a “C” average.  George’s father and grandfather were also Yale graduates and they had donated thousands of dollars to the school prior to Georges admission. After his graduation, and just before his draft number came up in the SSS lotto, he applied for acceptance into the Texas Air National Guard as a “Jet Fighter Pilot.” This was to keep him out of Viet Nam. George had no prior pilot training. No one other than George had ever been seriously considered for that position without an aviation background including a pilot’s license. George took a competitive “Pilot Aptitude Exam” for one of the four pilot slots that had opened up in the Texas Guard. Only the “best of the best of the best” were to be selected. George scored a whopping 25% on the exam. (It’s interesting that he “happened to score exactly 25%, because a score of 24% or less would have completely eliminated him from any consideration for the slot.) But, regardless of this technicality, “the worst of the worst of the worst” was accepted into the program, taught to fly an airplane – eventually a jet, and awarded the position as a commissioned officer … all at the taxpayers’ expense. I guess it helps a little when your father is a wealthy US Congressman from Texas.

Both John McCain’s father and grandfather were Admirals in the US Navy. John decided that he wanted to continue the family military tradition and applied for admission into the U.S Naval Academy. He was accepted. (I haven’t seen any information about his academic record in high school, so I have no idea whether he earned his slot, or was admitted because the two generations ahead of him attained the highest pay grades possible in the Navy. But, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he earned the admission based on his prior academic record.)

John went on to graduate from Annapolis. He didn’t quite finish Magna cum Laude (like Barack Obama finished Harvard), in fact, there were 899 cadets in Johns’ graduation class. John finished fifth from the bottom … a truly prophetic number for John. He went on to complete pilot training. His favorite pastimes were driving his Corvette, drinking, dating strippers and gambling. His performance in flight school was considered dismal at best. But, who’s going to challenge your conduct and academic performance in the Navy with all of that brass on your dad and grand pappy?  The plane that got shot down in Nam was not his first crash … or his second … or his third … or his fourth … BUT, HIS FIFTH CRASH. That’s five military jets destroyed with John McCain as the pilot-in-command??? Oh my God!

I recently retired with twenty one years as a federal Air Traffic Controller and prior time as a controller in the US Navy. I took flying lessons as a young man and completed my first solo flight with less than nine hours of dual time. I have quite a background in aviation and let me tell you, finding any pilot with FIVE crashes under his belt is quit rare – for any military or civilian pilot. (The only exception would possibly be for test pilots.) John was never a test pilot. Perhaps if John had really applied himself, cracked the books, and he had actually “tried” to achieve a minimal level of competence he wouldn’t have cost the Treasury Department the millions of dollars associated with his five military jet crashes.

Can’t they do any better than this?