Over the Top and Around the Bend

The Democrats’ attacks on John McCain are getting more outrageous on a daily basis. The latest outrage comes from Tom Harkin, who attacked McCain for coming from a military family and, apparently, for volunteering to serve his country in the U.S. Navy:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s family background as the son and grandson of admirals has given him a worldview shaped by the military, “and he has a hard time thinking beyond that,” Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., said Friday.

“I think he’s trapped in that,” Harkin said in a conference call with Iowa reporters. “Everything is looked at from his life experiences, from always having been in the military, and I think that can be pretty dangerous.”

Harkin said that “it’s one thing to have been drafted and served, but another thing when you come from generations of military people and that’s just how you’re steeped, how you’ve learned, how you’ve grown up.”

So it’s OK to serve in the military, but only if you’re drafted. Given that we now have an all-volunteer military, that standard will rule out everyone currently serving.

For what it’s worth, it’s hardly correct to say that McCain has “always…been in the military;” he retired from the Navy 27 years ago.

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