If a soldier who volunteered to serve in the military rapes or murders someone while in uniform, has he served honorably? Has Bradley Manning, who voluntarily joined the military and then betrayed his country by turning over hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks, served honorably? Did Benedict Arnold, another volunteer, serve with “honor and distinction”?

According to the logic of our national-security adviser, Susan Rice, they all did. Merely because they volunteered in the first place. Lieutenant Calley of My Lai Massacre fame? “Honor and distinction.”

Ms. Rice is aggressively stupid, immaculately clueless, and a disgrace to our system of government, but one does have to admire her tenacity. Late last week, Rice tried to extract herself from her effort to sell Private Bowe Bergdahl as a hero who served, as she had put in on ABC  This Week, “with honor and distinction.” (The rank of private is correct, in that his promotions were phony.) In her attempted walkback, Rice claimed that anyone who ever signed on the dotted line had served honorably: “What I was referring to was the fact that this was a young man who volunteered to serve his country in uniform at a time of war. That, in and of itself, is a very honorable thing.”

If this administration cannot embrace our military, might it not at least stop insulting those in uniform? No soldier is finally judged to have served “with honor and distinction” until his or her service is complete. There  a glaringly obvious reason for that.

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