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September 29, 2004
Draft Dodge
Everyone's all abuzz about the latest CBS idiotic misstatements and flatout falsehoods about a revival of the draft (best debunking at RatherBiased). But is it more than just another lame attempt to influence the election? I suspect it is, at least partially.
There's apparently been rumors floating around in the general public about reinstatement of the draft for a while now.....I even overheard a couple of people talking about it at my daughter's wedding reception/party Saturday. A Marine buddy of the SIL's was explaining to someone that the draft wasn't going to be reinstated for the simple fact that it would be political suicide for either Bush or Kerry to do so. Now he may have been as drunk as the proverbial Cooter Brown (and he was), but I think he was correct.
I also think the rumors stem from a combination of all the publicity Rangel got months ago when he introduced his draft bill, and people's natural concerns about the war. We've never fought a war of this magnitude with an all-volunteer military. Then the media keeps running stories about how our forces are stretched too thin, recruiting is not meeting the demand, 'inactive' military is being reactivated and so on. So if all you know is what you hear from the media, it's only natural for the uninformed to reason that the next logical step is to reinstate the draft.
Wrong conclusion, but understandable.
Posted by Rita at September 29, 2004 07:21 AM