What Baghdad needs: More Harvard Boys

Try to contain your laughter as you read the latest diagnosis of, and solution to, the Iraqi prisoner abuse problem, as put forward by the Wall Street Journal online editorial page. Diagnosis: not enough Ivy Leaguers participating in the military, which is because those awful leftie academics have kept military recruiters off-campus. Solution -- the academic left needs to stop whining, let the recruiters back on campus, and all will be well. And if you don't believe the argument is really this idiotic, here are the highlights:

But it also occurs to us that increasing the quality of military recruits would probably help avoid future Abu Ghraibs. One constructive step toward that end would be for elite universities to drop antimilitary policies, so that the military would have an easier time signing up the best and brightest young Americans.

Many academic institutions have barred ...military recruiters from campus for left-wing political reasons -- first as a protest against the Vietnam War, and later over the Clinton-era "don't ask, don't tell" law. Whatever the merits of these positions, it's time the academic left showed some patriotic responsibility and acknowledged that the defense of the country -- which includes the defense of their own academic freedom -- is more important than the issue du jour.

For a site that usually scoffs at supposed left-wing elitism, this is (unintentionally) hilarious. Especially noteworthy is the implicit endorsement of John Kerry, who after all, went to Vietnam as a graduate of Yale.