"As for another suggestion - only Medal of Honor winners - that supply
is totally inadequate."

This comment is essentially nonsense. 3458 people have been awarded the
Medal of Honor, more than enough to name every major warship in the WW II
USN much less modern ships, which is the focus of this discussion. Even if
you subtract the 1522 Civil War recipients, many of who received the medal
for acts which would not qualify them for the medal under the current
guidelines, there are still more than enough to name every US Destroyer
and Frigate which is currently in commission and planned.

As for naming ships for politicians, I still contend that the politician
in question should at least be dead before attaching the name. A situation
which applies to neither the USS Carl Vinson or John Stennis as the names
were chosen years before the ships were commissioned. Both Vinson and
Stennis died only months before either ship was completed.

Yet even when one considers the accomplishments of Vinson and Stennis,
they pale to insignificance to the contributions the the survival and
success of the United States when compared to Washington, Lincoln,
Eisenhower and even FDR. Theodore Roosevelt, despite his championing of
the navy, Harry Truman, and yes, even Ronald Regan, whom I admire greatly,
fall short as well. Men much more deserving of the honor would be Thomas
Jefferson, James Madison, or Andrew Jackson (for both his military service
and presidency.)

Kyle