[The KG9 Kid]

I think everyone on this thread is wildly off-base.

She's competent and capable. So's her retired Major General husband, an Air Force Academy honor man. They lost their daughter -- a USAF 2nd Lt and also an Air Force Academy grad -- in a plane crash during flight training. She's now buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

This is a family that lives and breathes United States Air Force.

Oh, you have to have been a pilot to command USAF Pacific Air Forces? Using that logic, ten or twenty years from now we'll probably have to promote a Predator drone robot to a four-star General when there's no more human bus drivers (aka 'Pilots') to put in command. It can sit in a chair and say "*MEEPZORP! BLEEP BLOOP!*" while a stream of paper tape spools out of it's mouth delivering orders.

Trying to make this appointment into some kind of Trayvon Martin outrage is absurd and foolishness on display.

[jazusamo]

Gen. Robinson was nominated amid a diversity push by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and a general focus on women’s issues by the White House. Mr. Hagel has vowed to stamp out sexual assaults in the military and said he is open to studying whether transgender people are permitted to serve.

I can't speak to much of your post and am truly sorry they lost their daughter, however this isn't about her husband nor her daughter.

The above excerpt is in the article and I consider that an outrage that is absurd and foolishness on display other than stamping out sexual assaults in the military.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Yes, you NEED to be a pilot to command.

Court Martial Letter comes across your desk, claiming a male pilot needs to be imprisoned because his string of bombs ended 200 meters across YOUR “line of demarcation” between rebels - who have been firing missiles at US planes - and the “enemy” - who have been firing missiles at US planes.

Are you going to sign it? After all, didn’t he disobey orders to drop bombs only on the right side of the line in the trees?