I pointed out a few weeks back that the U.S. armed forces had met or exceeded their recruitment levels in the teeth of the Iraq/Afghanistan conflict. I considered this a good sign, and waited in vain for this to make news.

The New York Times finally picked it up, but it apparently took this long to figure out a negative spin on it.

You see, it isn't patriotism, or a desire to serve the country. They just need jobs. Missing in this article: any actual interviews with recruits. Wonder why.

In a marvelous twisting of more good news, we have this:

The demographics of the newest Army recruits are shifting slightly. Women make up about 20 percent of this year's recruits; that figure is roughly unchanged over the last three years. But since the 2001 fiscal year, the share of Hispanics signing up has increased to about 13 percent from 11 percent, while the proportion of non-Hispanic whites has increased to about 65 percent from 62 percent. At the same time, the ratio of blacks signing up has
declined to 16 percent from nearly 23 percent.

Wow! The military, which has taken endless crap from the Left for being weighted toward black recruits, is now moving toward a cross-section more representative of actual population percentages. Good news for those who worry about such things, right? Wrong.

The drop in black recruits may be tied to the Army's increased focus on the college market, military officials say. Nearly one in four recruits now has some college experience, almost double the rate five years ago, General Rochelle said.

It's just because the Army is looking for more college recruits, and of course, in the eyes of the Left, that wouldn't include a lot of black people, would it?