LONDON -- A "gaffe" is a true statement that outrages the hypocrites, who then mobilize to shut the truth-teller up. The most common gaffes are about politics and religion, because those are the areas where the level of hypocrisy is highest. Which explains former U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry's problem last Tuesday, or why Muazzez Ilmiye Cig almost went to jail in Turkey on Wednesday.

Kerry inadvertently spoke the truth about why some people end up in the U.S. armed forces while others do not. Speaking to students in California, he said: "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard . . . you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Cue mass outrage. How dare Kerry suggest that people might be in the U.S. Army because they lacked the education for softer, safer, better-paying jobs, or indeed might have joined precisely to get that missing education? No, they're all there solely because they are patriots, and anybody who says differently will be spanked soundly and sent to bed without supper.