Premiere
Mendak is not an admiral because nothing on his card says he is.
One of the cornerstones of the characteristics rule is that you can't use information from other cards (or information taken directly from the show) to establish a characteristic; the card itself must say it's an admiral or a male or a perfume salesman or whatever.
The example Decipher traditionally used to teach this principle? Mendak.
So your question follows a long old tradition of people asking this question and thereby becoming enlightened about how characteristics work.
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