Sen. John Kerry stuck out his jaw and got clobbered. The Massachusetts Democrat, an unsuccessful candidate for president two years ago, suggested to a campaign rally of college students in Pasadena, Calif., that they need to get an education because “if you don’t, you’ll get stuck in Iraq.”

The implication apparently read by both Republicans and Democrats was that our troops are undereducated or uneducated. Such nonsense was, at best, an outrageously inappropriate, botched joke about troops who are putting their lives on the line in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the world. At worst, it was a slap in the face of every American who is or has served in the military.

After stubbornly refusing to apologize, Kerry finally did the right thing. He said he was sorry.

Not everyone may be understanding, particularly since he took so long to decide that he had offended those Americans who have defended this country in times of peril and peace. National American Legion Commander Paul A. Morin had commented: “A generation ago, Sen. Kerry slandered his comrades in Vietnam by saying that they were rapists and murderers. It wasn’t true then and his warped view of today’s heroes isn’t true now.”

Our troops daily demonstrate their love for the United States and their determination to defend our freedoms, our values and our interests. America’s liberties were hard won in the furnace of the Revolutionary War, and then tempered by other conflicts over the course of our history. Kerry’s delay in offering an apology turned a really, really bad joke to an unforgivable slap at our troops.

Lack of interest?

Baseball fans on the East and West coasts who didn’t get an all-New York or all-California World Series may have stayed away from their television sets for this year’s Fall Classic between the St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers.

None of the last three games of the series broke into the top 10 prime-time ratings. Apparently there was a lack of interest. Game 5 was the most watched game of the series with 16.28 million viewers. Game 4 was 13th and Game 3 was 16th. All were well behind “Desperate Housewives,” “Dancing with the Stars” and “CSI: Miami.”

This series certainly was not the most entertaining or electrifying ever, falling far short of the matchup between the Red Sox and Cardinals two years ago. But it had moments of high tension and excitement. It was, after all, the October Classic.