Gen. Dunford’s Win-Win Choice

There is bad news and good news for General Joseph Dunford, the top Marine President Obama tapped yesterday to become the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The bad news is that the General has to give up the best and most important job any Marine can have.

The good news is that before he finishes his brief tenure as Commandant, Joe Dunford can render an incalculably critical service to his Corps: Citing hard experience and recent experiments, he can refuse to dumb-down military performance standards and mission readiness in order to accommodate Team Obama’s demand that ground-combat positions be opened to women.

That would infuriate some politicians and might even cost him the JCS chairmanship. The really good news is he would still be the Commandant of Marines.