From: "John Beamish" 

Hard to argue!  It's a committee decision:  take the least likely to
embarrass, not the most likely to stand out.  As for not completing the
course ... one of the more barbed references to Rhodes scholars that I've
seen was "Rhodes scholars are people with a great future behind
them".

As for West Point ... one of the guys I went to school with (his father was
a military attache posting to Ottawa) applied for West Point and told me
(insert relevant emotion here:  bitterly, sadly, caustically) that it was
his inability to get a Senator to write a reference letter that kept him
out.  He went to VMI instead.  (We've lost touch ... I should try to
contact him and see how he's doing.)

"Tony Ingenoso"  wrote in
message news:407cd6ab{at}w3.nls.net...
> Even among political appointments (a couple each year are allocated for
West Point for legislators) one presumes the appointing
> authority would take some care to avoid being embarrased by the appointees
behavior once there.
>
> Sending dolts who don't complete the course obviously prompts people
question the judgment of the the appointer.
>

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