On October 22 voters tuned into a presidential debate expecting a serious discussion of foreign policy issues. Apparently President Barack Obama didn’t understand that fact or didn’t care. Or perhaps, he decided to use the show to audition for a new career on Saturday Night Live.
Obama responded to a statement by Mitt Romney about the navy being smaller than in 1916 by telling what some considered a joke instead of attempting to explain why he thinks the United States doesn’t need a larger navy.
“But I think Governor Romney maybe hasn’t spent enough time looking at how our military works. You — you mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets — (laughter) — because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.”
The statement is something I might expect from a half wit comic like Bill Mahr, but not from a president who is supposed to be demonstrating why he should be retained as commander in chief. If I were a Democrat I might suggest it is the type of statement I would expect from Michele Bachmann
Obama’s comparison of the size of the navy to the reduced need for horses and bayonets makes no sense. His use of this comparison indicates he doesn’t understand military matters. Incidentally, I was recently reminded that our special forces troops initially entered Afghanistan on horseback. I also found out that bayonets have been used in Iraq.
His statements about aircraft carriers and submarines sound like something a child would say or maybe something an adult would say to a child. I would be remiss if I didn’t suggest that Obama’s statement might be something someone under the influence of alcohol might consider brilliant.
It might come as a surprise to Obama but “ships that go underwater” were used extensively by the Germans in WWI. Our navy had trouble protecting merchants ships from submarine attack because our navy was too small. Incidentally I won’t fault Obama for using the word “ships” to refer to submarines, but the navy has traditionally used the term “boat” for a submarine rather than “ship”.
Aircraft carriers date from WWI, but the first ships used seaplanes that landed and took off from the water and were only stored on the ship. The first carrier capable of launching and landing aircraft, the HMS Argus, wasn’t launched until 1918.
