Being A Veteran Does Not Qualify You to be President

I've been listening to the noise around General Wesley Clark's answer to a quasi-statement made by Bob Schieffer:

SCHIEFFER: I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down. I mean --

CLARK: Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.

SCHIEFFER: Really?

There's been a huge reaction to this, including Obama denouncing the statement (shameful, in my opinion). I've got a simple question: What did he say wrong?

There are hundreds of Viet Nam era veterans that were shot down and captured. There were many more that were captured during ground combat. Some of them sleep under bridges around here (despite what Bill O'Reilly may believe). Being a soldier is not a qualification for being President (see George W. Bush). Being a jet pilot who was shot down and captured may be an incredibly exceptional experience, much like walking on the moon or climbing Everest but if it were an essential qualification for becoming President we would not have had any of our Presidents.

McCain may have qualities that make him a good candidate for President of this country. I can't figure out what these are since he represents a way of thinking that has sunk our country deep into debt, mired us in stupid wars that either should never have begun or should have been carried through before we started the stupid fucking war we shouldn't be in in the first place. And there's the abortion thing, the taxes thing, and the fact he may drop dead at any moment thing. But despite all that, his war experiences are part of his past that obviously doesn't connect with his present as he has decided to advocate torture and the withholding of habeus corpus.

It seems odd to me that the "media" should go so easy on Senator McCain. Could those barbecues and intimate press conditions be causing some "bias" amongst the "media?" "Enquiring minds" want to know.