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Dubya
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Qualified, you say? Here's the biographies of the Democratic Presidential Candidates (in order of the New Hampshire results)
I think any of the top five are qualified to be President, but you be the judge:
John Kerry
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John Kerry was born on December 11, 1943 at Fitzsimmons Military Hospital in Denver, Colorado, where his father, Richard, who had volunteered to fly DC-3's in the Army Air Corps in World War II, was recovering from a bout with tuberculosis. Not long after Sen. Kerry's birth, his family returned home to Massachusetts.
A graduate of Yale University, John Kerry entered the Navy after graduation, becoming a Swift Boat officer, serving on a gunboat in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. He received a Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat V, and three awards of the Purple Heart for his service in combat.
By the time Senator Kerry returned home from Vietnam, he felt compelled to question decisions he believed were being made to protect those in positions of authority in Washington at the expense of the soldiers carrying on the fighting in Vietnam. Kerry was a co-founder of the Vietnam Veterans of America and became a spokesperson for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War -- Morley Safer would describe him as "a veteran whose articulate call to reason rather than anarchy seemed to bridge the gap between Abbie Hoffman and Mr. Agnew's so-called 'Silent Majority.'" In April 1971, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he asked the question of his fellow citizens, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Sen. Claiborne Pell, (D-R.I.) thanked Kerry, then 27, for testifying before the committee, expressing his hope that Kerry "might one day be a colleague of ours in this body."
Fourteen years later, John Kerry would have the opportunity to fulfill those hopes - serving side by side with Sen. Pell as a Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But in the intervening years, he found different ways to fight for those things in which he believed. Time and again, Kerry fought to hold the political system accountable and to do what he believed was right. As a top prosecutor in Middlesex County, Kerry took on organized crime and put the Number Two mob boss in New England behind bars. He modernized the District Attorney's office, creating an innovative rape crisis crime unit, and as a lawyer in private practice he worked long and hard to prove the innocence of a man wrongly given a life sentence for a murder he did not commit.
In 1984, after winning election as Lieutenant Governor in 1982, Kerry ran and was elected to serve in the United States Senate, running and winning a successful PAC-free Senate race and defeating a Republican opponent buoyed by Ronald Reagan's reelection coattails. Like his predecessor, the irreplaceable Paul Tsongas, Kerry came to the Senate with a reputation for independence -- and reinforced it by making tough choices on difficult issues: breaking with many in his own Party to support Gramm-Rudman Deficit Reduction; taking on corporate welfare and government waste; pushing for campaign finance reform; holding Oliver North accountable and exposing the fraud and abuse at the heart of the BCCI scandal; working with John McCain in the search for the truth about Vietnam veterans declared POW/MIA; and insisting on accountability, investment, and excellence in public education.
Sen. Kerry was re-elected in 1990, again in 1996, defeating the popular Republican Governor William Weld in the most closely watched Senate race in the country, and in 2002. Now serving his fourth term, Kerry has worked to reform public education, address children's issues, strengthen the economy and encourage the growth of the high tech New Economy, protect the environment, and advance America's foreign policy interests around the globe.
John Kerry is married to Teresa Heinz Kerry. He has two daughters, Alexandra and Vanessa. Teresa has three sons, John, Andre, and Christopher. Senator Kerry lives in Boston.
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Howard Dean
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Governor Dean is a physician who previously shared a medical practice with his wife. (To read more about his wife Judy, click here.) He received his B.A. from Yale University in 1971 and his medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City in 1978. He served in the Vermont House from 1982 to 1986, was elected lieutenant governor in 1986, and became governor in 1991 with the death of then-Governor Richard Snelling.
A common-sense moderate who firmly believes that social justice can only be accomplished through strong financial management, Governor Dean has cut the income tax twice, removed the sales tax on most clothing, and reduced the state's long-term debt. Not only did the governor pay off an inherited $70 million deficit, he worked with lawmakers to build "rainy day" reserves to help the state through any future economic downturn.
During the Dean tenure, more than 41,000 new jobs have been created, the state's minimum wage has climbed twice, incentive programs have expanded to help downtowns attract new businesses, and tax incentives were created to attract and keep new companies.
If fiscal management is Governor Dean's trademark, improving the lives of Vermont's children is his passion. A physician, Governor Dean strengthened the Dr. Dynasaur program to guarantee health coverage to virtually every child in Vermont age 18 and under. Vermont has one of the lowest uninsured rates in the country and one of the highest rates of immunized children. Governor Dean has expanded programs to help seniors afford prescription drugs, and he signed into law one of the toughest managed-care consumer protections in the United States.
It is the preservation of Vermont's precious natural resources and landscapes that the governor considers his legacy. Governor Dean worked with local communities and the federal government to preserve more than one million acres of farmland, shorefront, working forests, and wilderness.
Under the Dean Administration, 76 of the state's leaking landfills were safely closed, and Vermont became a leader in the move to reduce mercury pollution and stop power plants from polluting the air. Governor Dean has created bikeways, led the effort to restore commuter rail service in Vermont, and led a strong, coordinated attack on sprawl.
Working with lawmakers, prosecutors, judges, and law enforcement, Governor Dean has cracked down on violent crime in Vermont and ensured that violent felons spend time behind bars. He has fought to protect family farms, increased the number of women and minorities in judgeships and other prominent positions, cracked down on domestic violence, and put Vermont in the forefront for child support collections.
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John Edwards
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John Edwards was born in Seneca, South Carolina and raised in Robbins, North Carolina, a small town in the Piedmont. There John learned the values of hard work and perseverance from his father, Wallace, who worked in the textile mills for 36 years, and from his mother, Bobbie, who ran a shop and worked at the post office. Working alongside his father at the mill, John developed his strong belief that all Americans deserve an equal opportunity to succeed and be heard.
A proud product of public schools, John became the first person in his family to attend college. He worked his way through North Carolina State University where he graduated with high honors in 1974, and then earned a law degree with honors in 1977 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
For the next 20 years, John dedicated his career to representing families and children hurt by the negligence of others. Standing up against the powerful insurance industry and their armies of lawyers, John helped these families through the darkest moments of their lives to overcome tremendous challenges. His passionate advocacy for people like the folks who worked in the mill with his father earned him respect and recognition across the country.
In 1998, John took this commitment into politics to give a voice in the United States Senate to the people he had represented throughout his career. He ran for the Senate and won, defeating an incumbent Senator.
In Congress, Senator Edwards quickly emerged as a champion for the issues that make a difference to American families: quality health care, better schools, protecting civil liberties, preserving the environment, saving Social Security and Medicare, and reforming the ways campaigns are financed.
As a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator Edwards has worked tirelessly for a strong national defense and to strengthen the security of our homeland. He has authored key pieces of legislation on cyber, bio, and port security.
Senator Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, whom he met when both were law students at Chapel Hill, were married in 1977. They have had four children, including: their eldest daughter, Catharine, a student at Princeton University; five-year-old Emma Claire, and a three-year-old son, Jack. Their first child, Wade, died in 1996.
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Wesley Clark
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As a 25-year old Army captain in Vietnam, commanding a mechanized infantry company, Clark was on patrol in the jungle, looking for Viet Cong, when he was shot four times. Commanding his troops despite his wounds, he gave a series of orders, and his soldiers quickly overran the enemy positions. His bravery in battle earned him a Silver Star.
Wes returned to the United States to recover from his wounds. One week into his stay at Valley Forge Hospital -- after he was up and out of his wheelchair - his wife Gert got permission to bring him home for a short visit to meet a four-month old boy named Wes - who had been born when his dad was in Vietnam.
At an early age, Wes remembers feeling that the country was in danger - listening to radio reports on the Korean War and hearing the grown ups talk at the barber shop about Nikita Khrushchev's threats. He remembers one cold day in Little Rock pulling a folding chair into the hallway where the floor furnace was, and reading in Reader's Digest about Soviet tanks crushing the revolt in Hungary. In his words, he "wanted to do something to protect the country." At age 17, he entered West Point, where he graduated first in his class and won a personal victory in America's oldest inter-service rivalry - meeting his future wife Gertrude at a dance given for naval midshipmen in New York.
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Read Wes Clark's personal financial, military and voting registration records online.
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His record at West Point won him a Rhodes scholarship, and in 1966 he headed to England for two years of study at Oxford University. He passed his Oxford exams in two years and left to go to Army Ranger School for 72 days of training before leaving for Vietnam.
The future General spent the next year in company command and military schools, rebuilding his body, and learned that in the Army, the surest reward for success is ever-tougher challenges. General Clark commanded battalions in Colorado and Germany, taking units that had failed inspections and transforming them into outfits receiving top ratings. He was the commanding General of the Army's National Training Center during the Persian Gulf War, and later conducted three emergency deployments to Kuwait as the commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas.
"We lived in 31 houses, apartments and, in one case a house trailer, had 20 jobs, and were always on the road -- and it wasn't the road to riches," Clark said. "But when my eight-year obligation to the Army was over, I decided to stay. To me, there was no greater honor -- no way to be nearer to the heart of what mattered in America -- than to be serving and protecting the country in the United States military."
Over the years, he has won the praise of many highly-placed people. General Barry McCaffrey, who taught with Clark at West Point called him a "national treasure," and "one of the top five most talented people I've met in my life." Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General John Shalikashvili said: "Clark has an infinite capacity for hard work and stress." General Alexander Haig, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, called the Major Wes Clark "an officer of impeccable character." General Colin Powell called then-Lieutenant Colonel Clark an officer of "the rarest potential."
In 1994, General Clark was named director for strategic plans and policy of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was there that General Clark insisted that the Pentagon develop an exit strategy for the 1994 invasion of Haiti. It was an innovative approach, which brought together the UN and the US government, non-military elements.
An American Leader
In 1995, General Clark traveled to the Balkans as the military negotiator with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke in a US effort to end the war in Bosnia, the bloodiest war in Europe since World War II. Shortly after arriving, General Clark was traveling in a convoy on a treacherous mountain road, when an armored personnel carrier went over the edge with three US negotiators inside. General Clark ran to the site, worked his way down the mountainside to the vehicle, which had burst into flames. He called for a fire extinguisher, and pried open the hatch of the vehicle - too late to save his friends. Clark blamed Milosevic. It was a tragic beginning of the American effort to bring peace to the Balkans.
A few months later, General Clark played a vital role in ending the war at the Dayton peace talks. Historian David Halberstam wrote that some observers considered General Clark one of the "quiet heroes" at Dayton - because he worked out a peace plan that would be militarily enforceable, even though he knew it put him at risk in the Pentagon, where almost no one was behind him.
In 1997, after serving as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Southern Command, General Clark was selected for one of the top posts in the military: Supreme Allied Commander of NATO - a position first held by General Eisenhower.
As Supreme Allied Commander, General Clark commanded NATO forces during the war in Kosovo - and won the war in a way few thought possible: with air power alone, without a single allied combat death, while holding together the alliance of 19 nations, and isolating Milosevic from his allies. Milosevic's brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing' that had led to four wars - met its match in Kosovo. His attempt to drive a million Kosovars from their homes was crushed, and the loss led to the end for Milosevic, who was voted out of office and later handed over to be tried for war crimes.
Halberstam summarized General Clark's performance in Kosovo this way: "On the military side, the dominant figure had been Wes Clark. To no small degree, he had broken ranks with the Pentagon because of his belief that America had to act at certain moments to be the nation it believed it was."
In his career as a commander in the Army, Clark attributes his success not just to his ability to fight the enemy, but his ability to fight for his people. "We're in the era of the all-volunteer Army," General Clark has said. "My soldiers were free to go, and I needed them to stay." That's why Wes Clark worked hard as a commander to take care of his soldiers and their families - advocating for better housing, better health care, and better schools for their children. "You can't build a strong Army just with great generals; you have to have great people at every rank. You have to give everyone a chance to be all you can be.' It's true for the United States Army, and it's true for the United States."
"I'm running to bring back the core ideals of our democracy - personal liberty, open debate, and opportunity for all. These ideals have made us great. They will make us greater. They will make us safer and more prosperous. Join me. We can have a new kind of patriotism in America. We can have a new kind of America."
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Joe Lieberman
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Throughout his public life -- whether representing his community of New Haven, Connecticut in the state legislature, fighting for the people of his state as Attorney General, serving 14 years in the United States Senate, or running for Vice President in 2000 alongside Al Gore -- Joe Lieberman has dedicated himself to giving something back to the country that has given him so much.
He has done his best to honor the values -- faith, family and freedom, equal opportunity and tolerance -- that he learned from his parents, his teachers and his hometown. Joe's father worked his way up from the back of a bakery truck to own his own liquor store. His mom, like his dad, is the child of immigrants. Together, they worked hard to earn the money to send Joe to college -- the first in his family to go. From there, he went on to law school, and began serving the people of his state, in the State Senate, in 1971. During the 1970s, Joe worked with Governor Ella Grasso to protect consumers and the environment and promote new job growth in Connecticut.
Lieberman has fought to knock down barriers, stop discrimination, and extend the promise of America to all our people. In the 1960s, Joe joined thousands to hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the historic March on Washington, and led a group of students to Mississippi to fight for African-Americans' right to vote.
As Connecticut's Attorney General from 1983 to 1988, Joe stood with single moms against deadbeat dads, fought corporations that broke the law to prey on consumers, and prosecuted polluters to make them pay. And in the Senate over the last 14 years, he's continued to lead -- guided not by partisan politics, but by his principles -- and to fight for what's right for America.
Joe has worked hard to spur innovation, create jobs, and keep the government's books in balance. He's fought to keep our nation safe and secure, by championing the creation a Department of Homeland Security to better protect America from terrorist attack. He's pushed to protect and preserve our environment for future generations. He's a strong advocate for investing in our public schools, empowering parents, and giving all Americans the chance to go to college. And he has worked to expand quality and affordable health care to every American and safeguard Medicare and Social Security for future generations.
Joe and his wife Hadassah have four children: Matthew, Rebecca, Ethan, and Hana. Plus they are the grandparents of three beautiful girls, Tennessee, Willie and Eden. He wants for them just what all Americans want for their families a fair chance to live their dreams. That's the promise of America.
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These are all fine Americans, and I'd be proud to call any of them President (even if I've been on the Kerry bandwagon since reading Tour of Duty). So please don't call them unqualified.
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"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."
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