It's ADMIRAL McRaven, Mr President! Obama botches rank of top Navy SEAL
Barack Obama: ‘I'd advise that you talk to General McRaven, who's in charge of our Special Ops. I think he has a point of view in terms of how deeply I care about what these folks do each and every day to protect our freedom.’
The difficulty with this is that William McRaven is and admiral not a general. As a SEAL, he is member of the US Navy, not US Army or US Marines.
For servicemen, ranks are important – they have worked hard and, in many cases, risked their lives, to earn them. And it’s one thing to omit a rank and another to botch the rank of the highest-ranking Special Forces operator in the country.
Lately, however, the president seems to be losing command of the details. In a speech at a fundraiser in New York on Wednesday night, he took aim at Todd Akin, the political punch bag du jour on both sides of the political aisle.
‘Recently, some of you have been paying attention to the commentary of the Senator of Missouri, Mr Akin, who - the interesting thing here is that this is an individual who sits on the House Committee on Science and Technology, but somehow missed science class.
‘It's representative of a desire to go backwards instead of forwards, and to fight fights that we thought were settled twenty, thirty years ago.’
The problem is, Akin is a congressman who is running for a US Senate seat in Missouri. Senator Claire McCaskill, Obama’s favourite Senator until a few months ago when she started to distance herself from him in an effort to win re-election, might not particularly appreciate the President having conceded her seat already.
