Nobles and knaves

Nobles: George Perez, for exhibiting character of the highest caliber.

Mr. Perez, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division, was injured by a roadside bomb in Fallujah last year. The injury caused Mr. Perez to lose his leg, but it didn’t cause him to lose his spirit.

“I’m not ready to get out yet,’ he says. “‘I’m not going to let this little injury stop me from what I want to do.’” Little injury? According to the Associated Press: “Perez is one of at least four amputees from the 82nd Airborne Division to re-enlist. With a new carbon-fiber prosthetic leg, Perez intends to show a medical board he can run an eight-minute mile, jump out of airplanes and pass all the other paratrooper tests that will allow him to go with his regiment to Afghanistan next year.”

After Mr. Perez rejoins his fellow soldiers, he says his dream is to attend Ranger school in Fort Benning, Ga. We wish Mr. Perez the best of luck in attaining his dream. That said, terrorists of the world beware: George Perez will be back.

For his strength, courage and commitment to be the best America has to offer, Mr. Perez is the Noble of the week.

Knaves: Former President Jimmy Carter, for ignorance of America’s first war and politicization of its current war.

Earlier this week, Mr. Carter was on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews.” Mr. Matthews asked his guest if, as an amateur historian, he sees any parallels between the war in Iraq and the Revolutionary War.

Mr Carter: “Well, one parallel is that the Revolutionary War more than any other war until recently has been the most bloody war we’ve fought.” Stop right there. For a former president and author of a book on the Revolutionary War, Mr. Carter is amazingly ignorant of American history. Mr. Carter is getting up there in years, so we’ll give his “until recently” a bit of a pass. But for the record, in the Revolutionary War which took place from 1775 to 1783 there were 4,435 American deaths. In a single battle in the Civil War (The Wilderness, May 5 to May 7, 1864), Gen. Ulysses S. Grant lost 17,666 men in two days.

Wait, it gets worse: “I think another parallel is that in some ways the Revolutionary War could have been avoided. It was an unnecessary war.” What could possibly account for this falsehood? Well, here’s the rest: “Had the British Parliament been a little more sensitive … we would gotten our independence in a non-violent way … the British were very misled in going to war against America … ” So, by Mr. Carter’s revisionism, a shortage of sensitivity and bad intelligence led the British to wage an eight-year, “unnecessary” war. Sound familiar?

For reminding Americans why they kicked him out of the White House, Mr. Carter is the Knave of the week.