Schooling the Young'un

During tonight's Presidential Debate, John McCain repeatedly noted that Senator Obama did not understand various issues. In most of these cases, Senator McCain did an admirable job of explaining the difference in Senator Obama's understanding of the situation and his own. In one, however, it seemed that he was being a bit peevish, perhaps even nitpicky.

In response to McCain's criticism of Obama's failure to support the surge, or even to acknowledge its success, Obama replied, "They have done a brilliant job, and General Petraeus has done a brilliant job. But understand, that was a tactic designed to contain the damage of the previous four years of mismanagement of this war."

Senator McCain jumped on this, beginning his next remarks with, "I'm afraid Senator Obama doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy."

I must confess, neither did I. Tactic, strategy, they're essentially the same thing, right? Wrong.

According to dictionary.com, when applied to things military, the words have very different meanings indeed:

In military usage, a distinction is made between strategy
and tactics.
Strategy is the utilization, during both peace and war, of
all of a nation's forces, through large-scale, long-range
planning and development, to ensure security or victory.
Tactics deals with the use and deployment of troops in
actual combat.

Is this just a trivial detail? Not when it comes to commanding the respect of the military you are elected to lead. A commander-in-chief who doesn't appreciate the difference between a stratgy and a tactic is little different from the woman who takes her car to the shop and tells them that a doohickey fell off her motor. They get no respect.

A man incapable of gaining the respect of the military has no business presenting himself as a candidate for the position of Commander-In-Chief.