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I realize that my posting probably came off as rather snide, but my point was that "being in charge" of something is highly overrated (in the sense of "having your finger on a button" in a complex system devised by others - i.e., being a highly trained monkey).

I maintain that highly trained yet emotionally callow twenty-somethings "programmed" to respond (in a circumscribed fashion) to a border incursion or other military event taken from a limited playbook of possible scenarios still do not possess the life wisdom, restraint, emotional maturity, and - if you will - "vision" to, e.g., broker a peace, launch international negotiations, lead a political party, head a trade delegation, frame a treaty, etc. - in short, things that the leader of a country must be expected to do (that is, after all, the point of the article we've both responded to).

Do you dispute that?

Thanks for your service to our country, which I certainly do not mean to denigrate.

Regards,

How has that having the “wise old men” in charge been working out for us? Just look at the 20th Century, for example: Two horrific world-wide wars, many more medium-sized conflicts and brush wars, genocide on a scale never seen before, widespread famine, gangsters, revolutions, terrorism, abortion as birth control, eugenics, racial purity, apartheid, Jim Crow, rampant pollution, almost universal corruption, etc., etc.