He was a retired Colonel who was an ace and had shot down migs in both Korea and Nam.
After he retired from the air force he did some instructing. I was his very first student. I remember having a bit of trouble with one fairly involved maneuver and I asked him how to do it. He said, "Just move the controls so the plane goes where you want it to go."
But the thing that blew my mind was that he nearly flunked out of primary flight school in the Air Force.
Like Bush he scored high on leadership and a bit low on natural flying skills. He showed me in his log book that it had taken him twice as many hours of flight time to solo as it had me.
He told me once that you could teach a chimpanzee to fly an plane. I'm not sure if he was referring to me or not. But I don know you can't teach leadership, keeping cool, and maintaining composure. And those characteristics is what it takes to make a great fighter pilot.
Good judgment and cool under fire beats fast reflexes every time.
It has helped President Bush, too, and will help in the months to come when the Dems trot all this crap out again!