Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat and Vietnam-era veteran, has decided to make a royal donkey's hindquarters out of himself.

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."

Try to ignore the anti-military slander inherent in the Harkin's suggestion that anyone who chooses to serve this nation in the military -- and especially if their forefathers did the same -- has some sort of mental defect that makes them "dangerous." Focus for a second on recent history and the 2004 election. Back then, when the Democrats had a "war hero" Vietnam vet running against a "draft-dodging" Air National Guard pilot, military experience was everything. Imagine the uproar in the national media had a GOP senator who had a history of lying about his military service attack Sen. John Kerry as damaged goods and mentally unstable.

McCain has too much military service -- rising to the rank of Captain in the Navy after serving more than five years as a POW. And his father and grandfather served.

Vice President Dick Cheney didn't have enough military service when Harkin in 2004 derided him as a "coward" for not serving in Vietnam.

Apparently, Sen. Kerry had just the right amount of military service -- less than a year in actual combat and neither his father nor grandfather apparently served.

Harkin should be run out of town on a rail.