As usual, Mr. Keillor makes a valid point, but he does not go far enough. The solution regarding a truly representative military is one that the "five deferments--I had other priorities crowd" will not consider. Bring back the draft. As the father of only one child (a son), I say this with great trepidation. True representation in the military will only occur when national service (why even confine it to the military?) becomes a duty and not merely a personal option. How can we expect judgment and rationality from Congress if only a handful of legislators have relatives serving in war zones?

The key word in 'military service' isn't 'military'. It's 'service'.

Those who enter the 'service' are serving others at the ostensible cost of serving themselves. They might get some personal growth or strength or career benefit from the time spent 'serving', but the primary goal is to serve the needs of the country. While in the service, there is little personal choice about the means by which one is allowed to serve, or where. This is part of serving - you don't get to cherry-pick what parts you do and what you don't.

There are other ways to serve your country that don't involve the military, but which involve putting your own immediate desires, goals and requirements behind those of the service you are performing. Many countries allow conscientious objectors to the draft (and don't forget that unlike the US, almost all European countries never stopped drafting young men into military) to exchange their time of military service for civilian service. This can involve putting in time at a hospital or retirement home, doing menial jobs in government institutions, and so on. The service period is longer than that spent in the military because the kind of work doesn't tend to be as physically demanding, nor are the civilian servicepeople in danger of being sent to war zones. They are, however, at the disposal of their country for a certain length of time.

What we learn from serving our country and serving others is that our needs do not always come first, that there is glory in being of service, and that working as a part of something larger than yourself can be a very rewarding, humbling and maturing experience.

It goes without saying that the mere fact of entering the service doesn't prevent some from abusing the system, using connections to get the easy jobs, or just plain not showing up for work and getting away with it. We know these people didn't do much character building because they never really served anything but their own interests. So having been in the military service doesn't automatically qualify anyone for presidential aspirations.

A general call to military and civilian arms in the name of the nation, however, might build us a few more candidates who have bigger things in mind than their own personal desires.

I hope what Mr. Keillor is proposing is tongue-in-cheek political satire, similar to his we're-all-Republicans-now shtick of 2003. I cringed when I heard that on PHC, but the PHC Website made it clear that real Republican listeners knew he was making fun of them, not joining them. I hope GK is making this modest proposal in the same spirit.

I'm less hopeful about the responders who want to do him one better. Such as the one who held up the Roman Republic as an example. The Framers were inspired by the Roman Republic as a blueprint for the new nation, but one aspect of it that they refused to emulate was the military requirement for entering politics. Maybe they were on to something?

I think they were. Look back to 1996. Dole was a decorated WWII veteran; Clinton had avoided military service. But who was the better man? Not Dole, who dragged out the pseudo-scandal known as Filegate to use on his opponent.

Amen to the posters who have pointed out that there are other, often better ways to learn responsibility and humility than the military. In his postwar musical, "Call Me Mister," one of Harold Rome's songs went, "He was a jerk before he went into the service," entered "Army life" with its "discipline and strife" and came out "still a jerk."

Case in point: when my late father didn't know the answer to a question, he would make up some ridiculous story rather than admit ignorance. Did he have military experience? You bet he did--he was a WWII veteran.

... I have to say, this is a terrible idea.

As another poster (also a veteran; this is not a coincidence) pointed out, the military is made up up human beings. Some of them are very good people, some of them are very bad, and some of them, like most people, are somewhere in the middle. Was the military a useful experience in shaping me? Yes, it was, and I'm glad I did it -- but everyone goes through formative experiences in their late teens and early twenties, and it's really hard to say that one type of experience is always more valuable than another.

There's a larger issue here. Throughout the Cold War, and now with the "War on Terror," we've become obsessed with the President's duty as Commander in Chief of the armed forces. Note the number of lifelong civilians who routinely refer to the President as "the Commander in Chief," as though that were his title, instead of "President." Unless you are currently in military service, he's not your CiC. Really. He's not. You don't have a Commander in Chief, and you should be glad of that fact.

This is dangerous because it leads people to forget that CiC is only one of the President's many duties. The Presidency is not defined by the office's military functions. White House decisions also have profound impact on the economy, which in most cases affects the everyday lives of Americans far more than military affairs do; should we also require that the President have been a businessman? Hmmm, Bush has an MBA -- that hasn't worked out so well. The President's job strictly speaking is to enforce the law; should we require the President to have been a cop or a lawyer? Clinton, of course, was the latter -- but he was also only the second President to be impeached, which is about the worst legal trouble someone in that position can get in. Meanwhile, America's greatest wartime Presidents, Lincoln and FDR, had, respectively, little and no time in uniform under their belts.

There is simply no way any one would-be President can have done everything and learned everything about the lives of all the people his decisions will affect. To put it in one-sentence, instant-cliche terms: vote for the policies, not the resume.