JUST A QUICK COMMENT: I wasn’t going to go back to the Arkin controversy; there are plenty of people better qualified than I am to take him and his uncharitable opinion of the all-volunteer military to task; but it does seem to me that the people who share his opinion are in for a startling, and to them, entirely unexpected, comeuppance. Today’s American military is probably the best-educated armed force this country has ever fielded. Some 96.78% of enlisted personnel are high school graduates, 92.1% of the officer corps hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, and many of the enlisted troops will be going on to college after their hitch is up. In short, the idea that this particular group of individuals will sit still and take their lumps while the left smears them as they smeared the Vietnam veterans is nothing short of fantastic. It is no wonder then that the left is busy trying to restore the late and unlamented fairness doctrine and will try, no doubt, to have that abomination applied to the Internet also. The most successful smear jobs have these two things in common: first, that the victim of the smear cannot answer the charges hurled at them, and second, the person perpetrating the smear can control or stifle any voice that might want to aid the victim. With the arrival of the Internet, the men and women Mr. Arkin so callously dismisses can answer him back and they can do so without worrying about whether or not some media gatekeeper who agrees with Mr. Arkin will censor them.

For the Democrats, the idea that large numbers of these men and women will support a party that derives much of its backing from the sort of people that agree with Mr. Arkin’s assessment of their service to their country is equally fantastic, not too mention terrifically shortsighted as well. The average American today can now expect to live into their mid to late 70’s. When you consider that the youngest soldier in Iraq now is in his late teens, the Democrats will have to wonder if winning in 2008 is so important to them that they are willing to alienate this young man and his comrades in arms from their party until 2068. This, of course, is a very foolish question on my part; today’s Democrats are willing to alienate anyone and everyone you can think of if it helps get Hilary into the White House in 2009. Ah well, so it goes.