It’s curious what qualifies as a legitimate concern.

For all the ink spilled about Obama’s pal Bill Ayres and his bomb throwing past, no one seems concerned that this unreformed radical holds a high position in a public university.

But what if the military accepted felons? Whoa!

The Army admitted about one-fourth more recruits last year with a record of legal problems ranging from felony convictions and serious misdemeanors to drug crimes and traffic offenses, as pressure to increase the size of U.S. ground forces led the military to grant more waivers for criminal conduct, according to new data released yesterday.

The Washington Post story sounds scary. Just for the heck of it, I read six versions of this story. Only the AP version included details such as this:

The services use a waiver process to let in recruits with felony convictions, and many of the crimes were committed when the service members were juveniles.

For example, in several of the Marine sex crime cases, the offender was a teenager involved in consensual sex with another underage teen. In one Army case, a 13-year-old who threw a match into his school locker was charged with arson and had to receive a felony waiver six years later.

So bomb the Pentagon and you’re qualified to impose your ideas on generations of college students. But toss a lighted match into your locker and it’s a scandal.