Being shot down may not qualify one to be president, ...

Let me be clear, John McCain is not my first choice for becoming the next president; he’s not even number 2. And I have often thought that the role of live “war hero” should be reserved for people who were instrumental in winning battles and wars. So in a literal sense what Wesley Clark said is true: "I don't think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president."

"It doesn't take a great deal of effort to get shot down," McCain himself is fond of saying.

But as Kathleen Parker eloquently puts it:

McCain isn't a hero because he was tortured. He's a hero because he declined an offer by his captors to be released, refusing to leave his fellow Americans behind.

It may not take much effort to get shot down, but it must take a considerable act of will to consign oneself to more deprivation and torture. It must take a level of courage unknown to most to place concern for others above one's own interest.

Surely self-sacrifice, courage and loyalty figure somewhere in the calculus for selecting a president.

McCain has exhibited the kind of grit and determination that allowed him to save his honor when he was being physically tortured. He refused to take the easy way out.

That is the kind of focused determination that has allowed George Bush to see the Iraq war through to a successful conclusion despite the combined opposition of the country’s press, vilification by the Democrat party and the cut-and-run positions of many of his former supporters. At times it seemed that the only people who supported the war were Bush, Chaney and the men fighting the war.

In stark contrast, we have a photogenic snake oil salesman in the form of Barack Hussein Obama whose life of ease is untroubled by active supporters who conspired to bomb the Pentagon, whose spiritual advisor screamed racist, America damning remarks from the pulpit of his church for 20 years, and whose financial supporters include a slum lord who is now going to jail for bribery. With just a few whiffs of bad publicity we have Obama distancing himself from his closest and oldest friends. Honor and constancy are words foreign to this poser who is attracting adherents because he learned a great truth years ago: if you are a blank screen on whom people project their hopes and dreams you can go far.

I may not like the stands that John McCain has taken regarding some very important issues, but compared to Obama he is a pillar of virtue and righteousness. He is the man I trust to lead the nation at a time of great peril both internally and internationally.

He is a man, not an image cast on a screen.