Harkin's Heroes

Break out your love beads, dust off your Moby Grape albums — it’s 1968 again!

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin is catching grief for suggesting John McCain’s family history of military service makes the presumptive Republican presidential nominee unfit to be commander-in-chief. Harkin, who has a history of embellishing his own military record, told Iowa reporters last week that McCain’s background as the son and grandson of Navy admirals creates a “dangerous” situation because he can only view the world through the prism of the military.

Harkin’s slur appears to be a finely-tuned offshoot of the “McCain is nuts” meme currently floating around. It’s a rather strange one, since you would think that in this day and age a candidate with military experience might be a plus. That was John Kerry’s entire raison d’etre in 2004. Democrats loved him, because Kerry spent 30 years apologizing for serving in Vietnam. Harkin, strangely, never shied away from speaking of his military background. In fact, you might say he was almost too proud: