From: Jeff Shultz 

adam flinton wrote:

> Jeff Shultz wrote:
>> adam flinton wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Jeff Shultz wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>Why? Only republican presidents? No USS Jimmy Carter
& no USS William
>>>>>Clinton...
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Jimmy Carter, a former Navy submariner, will have the 3rd
(I think) of
>>>>the Seawolf class subs named after him. Clinton did nothing worthy of
>>>>naming one after him, the draft dodger.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Like the present President you mean? Democrats get scholarships to
>>>Oxford & republicans get daddy to fix em up a nice quiet
bit of national
>>>guard/reserve duty?
>>>
>>>What did HW Bush do?
>>>
>>
>> Served in the Texas Air National Guard. Which incidently, did have a
>> purpose in life.  And unlike the casualty statistics for Rhodes Scholars
>> in Moscow, Air Force pilot training is definitely not a safe profession.
>>
>
> Safer than being enlisted & shipped to SE Asian jungles I reckon.

Probably - but if you are smart enough to be a pilot, you should be one -
and not "wasted" as an enlisted man.
>
>
>> However, unless HW Bush does something significant for the Navy or comes
>> off as one of the great leaders of our time (I happen to like him, but
>> "great leaders of our time" is doubtful), he won't get a
carrier named
>> after him either. I suspect that after he's out of office, if he hasn't
>> disgraced himself with any interns or such, he'll probably get something
>> in the Texas Air National Guard structure re-named after him. As much as
>> a base, as little as a significant building.
>
> Seems a little falacious to me. Is that Senator from Arizona who was
> shot down & captured over N. Vietnam going to get a ship?
>
McCain? Possibly he will eventually. But it wouldn't be a carrier. Probably
along the lines of a destroyer. And it would probably happen after he died.

> The other way "doing things for the navy" strikes me as even
worse as it
> is in effect buying a shipnaming with taxpayer's money

Only if that is the goal.... which, as far as I can see, hasn't been for
the three living presidents who are currently having ships named for them.
OTOH, I don't happen to like the trend, started in the 50's with the
Forrestal, of naming carriers after politicians.

--
Jeff Shultz

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