Its unlikely we'll get an apology from Charlie Rangel for echoing John Kerry's characterization of the troops as academically-challenged losers.

I want to make it abundantly clear: if there’s anyone who believes that these youngsters want to fight, as the Pentagon and some generals have said, you can just forget about it. No young, bright individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of educational benefits. And most all of them come from communities of very, very high unemployment. If a young fella has an option of having a decent career or joining the army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in Iraq.

Is he right? The truth as usual, is that the liberal-left is lying. What is perplexing is that they lie even when they don't need to. I've quoted the Heritage report on military recruiting demographics before:

In summary, we found that, on average, 1999 recruits were more highly educated than the equiv­alent general population, more rural and less urban in origin, and of similar income status. We did not find evidence of minority racial exploitation (by race or by race-weighted ZIP code areas). We did find evidence of a "Southern military tradition" in that some states, notably in the South and West, provide a much higher proportion of enlisted troops by population.

The household income of recruits generally matches the income distribution of the American population. There are slightly higher proportions of recruits from the middle class and slightly lower proportions from low-income brackets. However, the proportion of high-income recruits rose to a disproportionately high level after the war on ter­rorism began, as did the proportion of highly edu­cated enlistees. All of the demographic evidence that we analyzed contradicts the pro-draft case.

That squares with my anecdotal experience. Far from being the much abused underclass Democrats love to mock, some of the brightest people I've know opted for military careers. They do it because they are patriots, and Charlie Rangel's inability to even conceive of such a motivation says more about him and his fellow Democrats than anything else. As I've stated previously, my son in nearing the end of his training.

Did he join for the bonus?

That may have had some impact on the MOS he chose, but he had already decided to join before ever reviewing the bonus schedule. He also had employment opportunities that would have earned a lot more money that he can earn in the military (one of my son's friends earned $36,000.00 this summer...)

Did he join for the tuition money?

I was happy to pay for his education even if my wife didn't have a tuition benefit from the university.

Its not clear to me why Democrats perpetuate this myth. The idea that Florida and Texas, two of the biggest sources for military recruits, have high unemployment , is simply ridiculous.

Charlie Rangel is either abysmally ignorant or dangerously stupid, possibly both, but his attitude is pretty much par for the course for the liberal-left. It won't be until we retire the old liberal farts like Rangel that the Democrat party might again find itself in touch with the reality of this country.