The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

Questions Nobody Is Asking
“Sweden: Hard at Work or Hardly Working?”–headline, TheLocal.se, Nov. 9

Out on a Limb

  • “Canada ‘Could Expect’ Massive Earthquake at Any Time: Geophysicist”–headline, Canadian Press, Nov. 9

Bottom Stories of the Day

  • “Hermain Cain Loses Endorsement From American Mustache Institute”–headline, Yahoo! News, Nov. 10
  • “Canada to Use Bicentennial to Ensure War of 1812 Is No Longer ‘Forgotten’ “–headline, Canadian Press, Nov. 10

Hire a Vet
It’s Veteran’s Day and Eric Shinseki, the secretary of veterans affairs, has an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal that carries the seemingly uncontroversial title “Why Veterans Make Good Employees.” He argues that vets have superior decision-making and leadership skills and an excellent work ethic. And he touts the Obama administration’s efforts to help them find work:

On Thursday, First Lady Michelle Obama announced a significant commitment by U.S. companies to hire 100,000 veterans and military spouses by 2014. This was a direct response by companies like Microsoft, Home Depot, Citi and UPS to President Obama’s challenge to the private sector to offer jobs and career opportunities to veterans, wounded warriors and their families. . . .

President Obama understands our solemn obligation to veterans and the critical role they will play in getting our economy back on track. He has pushed many veteran-hiring initiatives, including the American Jobs Act, which includes significant tax credits for businesses that hire veterans, particularly those who have service-connected disabilities and those who have been unemployed for a long time.

Something doesn’t quite add up here. We can understand the argument for giving disabled vets special help finding work. But if, all else being equal, veterans make better employees than nonveterans, what justification could their be for special incentives to hire able-bodied vets?

One answer may be that veterans face discrimination in the workplace. Shinseki hints at this when he observes that in the aftermath of Vietnam, “there was an air of disdain for the military and for those who had served in Vietnam–nothing confrontational, nothing openly disrespectful, but studied indifference.”

Actually, such attitudes still exist, and they are sometimes considerably harsher than Shinseki describes. Boston radio host Michael Graham reports that a staffer at Suffolk Law School sent out an email soliciting donations to send care packages to deployed soldiers, including one student from the law school who is currently in Afghanistan. That prompted a response from a professor named Michael Avery:

I think it is shameful that it is perceived as legitimate to solicit in an academic institution for support for men and women who have gone overseas to kill other human beings. I understand that there is a residual sympathy for service members, perhaps engendered by support for troops in World War II, or perhaps from when there was a draft and people with few resources to resist were involuntarily sent to battle. That sympathy is not particularly rational in today’s world, however.

The party currently in the White House has a lot to answer for in encouraging such attitudes. In 2004 it nominated for president a man who began his political career by outrageously slandering Vietnam veterans, and who to this day has never expressed any remorse. President Obama, a former academic and a man of the left, could do some good if he were to use his bully pulpit to denounce such ugly sentiments.

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”