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| Home Front: Politix |
| P.J. O'Rourke: a civcs lesson on an aircraft carrier |
| 2008-04-23 |
| The Weekly Standard Go read it all; this is just a sample. Some say John McCain's character was formed in a North Vietnamese prison. I say those people should take a gander at what John chose to do--voluntarily. Being a carrier pilot requires aptitude, intelligence, skill, knowledge, discernment, and courage of a kind rarely found anywhere but in a poem of Homer's or a half gallon of Dewar's. . . . A one-day visit to an aircraft carrier is a lifelong lesson in conservatism. The ship is immense, going seven decks down from the flight deck and ten levels up in the tower. But it's full, with some 5,500 people aboard. Living space is as cramped as steerage on the way to Ellis Island. Even the pilots live in three-bunk cabins as small and windowless as hall closets. A warship is a sort of giant Sherman tank upon the water. Once below deck you're sealed inside. There are no cheery portholes to wave from. McCain could hardly escape understanding the limits of something huge but hermetic, like a government is, and packed with a madding crowd. It requires organization, needs hierarchies, demands meritocracy, insists upon delegation of authority. An intricate, time-tested system replete with checks and balances is not a plaything to be moved around in a doll house of ideology. It is not a toy bunny serving imaginary sweets at a make-believe political tea party. The captain commands, but his whims do not. He answers to the nation. And yet an aircraft carrier is more an example of what people can do than what government can't. Scores of people are all over the flight deck during takeoffs and landings. They wear color-coded T-shirts--yellow for flight-directing, purple for fueling, blue for chocking and tying-down, red for weapon-loading, brown for I-know-not-what, and so on. These people can't hear each other. They use hand signals. And, come night ops, they can't do that. Really, they communicate by "training telepathy." They have absorbed their responsibilities to the point that each knows exactly where to be and when and doing what. These are supremely dangerous jobs. And most of the flight deck crew members are only 19 or 20. Indeed the whole ship is run by youngsters. . . . |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #8 Would have liked to have this story to pass on to my Dad; the boat schedules and his infrequent visits to us never coincided so he never understood what we did. And yes, the 'kids' run the show and are damn good at it. us khakis just sat back and gave a gentle nudge when needed ( insert your own definition of 'nudge' here) |
| Posted by: USN,Ret. 2008-04-23 17:37 |
| #7 Before I started reading PJ, I was pretty wishy-washy about politics - he opened my eyes and moved me over towards the libertarian side. The key takeaway quote I got from one of his books was something to the effect of "Giving money to the government is like giving whiskey and car keys to a teenage boy" |
| Posted by: Rambler in California 2008-04-23 15:20 |
| #6 Yowser! That's gonna leave a mark on the dhimmis. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2008-04-23 14:53 |
| #5 And there's this from the article: Supposedly the "youth vote" is all for Obama. But it's John McCain who actually has put his life in the hands of adolescents on a carrier deck. Supposedly the "women's vote" is . . . well, let's not go too far with this. I can speak to John's honor, duty, valor, patriotism, etc., but I'm not sure how well his self-discipline would have fared if he'd been on an aircraft carrier with more than 500 beautiful women sailors the way I was. At least John likes women, which is more than we can say about Hillary's attitude toward, for instance, the women in Bill's life, who at this point may constitute nearly the majority of the "women's vote." |
| Posted by: ptah 2008-04-23 13:53 |
| #4 PBS has been promoting an upcoming program titled "Carrier". tax sponsored spying for our enemies. |
| Posted by: Sninert Black9312 2008-04-23 13:05 |
| #3 Tidbit from the piece, page 2: I look from John McCain to what the opposition has to offer. There's Ms. Smarty-Pantsuit, the Bosnia-Under-Sniper-Fire poster gal, former prominent Washington hostess, and now the JV senator from the state that brought you Eliot Spitzer and Bear Stearns. And there's the happy-talk boy wonder, the plaster Balthazar in the Cook County political crèche, whose policy pronouncements sound like a walk through Greenwich Village in 1968: "Change, man? Got any spare change? Change?" The man can express his opinion! |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-04-23 13:00 |
| #2 Actually, the PBS series on various aspects of the Long War (by Frontline?) has been pretty good. They did one on the Pakistani border territories that I found fascinating, including getting a glimpse through the crowd of that famously handsome but invisible Taliban leader with the curly black locks. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-04-23 12:46 |
| #1 PBS has been promoting an upcoming program titled "Carrier". I believe it starts Sunday night. I look forward to it. Yeah, I know, it's PBS money that put it together so I'll reserve judgment. At least it's not produced by Bill Moyers. Anyway, we'll see... |
| Posted by: MarkZ 2008-04-23 11:26 |