Feeling a Draft?

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 22, 2006 10:46 AM

The day was so long ago that I got the news from an old, clacking wire-service machine that spit out a long spool of paper.

I searched for my birthday. There it was. My number was over 300. I was safe from the draft.

Any man who was over 18 during Vietnam remembers the lottery. Those of us who were in college were protected from an immediate call-up, but not once we graduated, so those numbers mattered.

I've often thought that if there were a draft today, the protests against the Iraq war would be so great that it would force an American withdrawal. But since those doing the fighting and dying are drawn from a small segment of society--volunteers, rarely from the elites--the impact on the rest of the country is muted.

Now comes Charlie Rangel, soon to be chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, with a proposal that we reinstate the draft. His argument is that politicians would be less likely to authorize war if they knew that their children and those of their friends and supporters might be whisked off to places like Iraq against their will.

He is, of course, right. But that has to be weighed against the broader impact on millions of young Americans whose lives, studies and fledgling careers would be disrupted by such a policy. Why resort to a draft when we can fill the military ranks with those who, for reasons ranging from financial incentives to patriotism, are willing to sign up on their own?

And if there is a class element in the volunteer approach, there was in the draft as well. Young men not in college had to go if their number was called, while those of us in higher education were protected.

The Rangel plan has zero chance of passing. In fact, Democratic leaders have been tripping over themselves in running away from it. This underscores the degree to which the Democrats are a party of freelancers. In the highly disciplined House GOP, no committee chairman would be allowed to float a controversial proposal without the backing of the Republican leadership.

But the intellectual debate is an interesting one. Has an all-volunteer Army made war too easy, or do armed forces function better when comprised of people who want to be there? And what about the notion of universal sacrifice?

This is a hot subject in the blogosphere, starting with Betsy's Page:

"Charlie Rangel is, at least, showing the courage of his convictions by working towards reinstating the draft. He believes that politicians wouldn't vote for war if they thought that their children would have to go fight it. Perhaps that is true, although we have fought wars when we did indeed have a draft, albeit with provisions for people to get out of it. I don't know how many congressmen have draft-age children, but under Rangel's proposal, that age range would be quite broad: ages 18-42. They wouldn't have to all serve in the military, however. Rangel is willing to conscript them into good works.

"He said having a draft would not necessarily mean everyone called to duty would have to serve. Instead, 'young people [would] commit themselves to a couple of years in service to this great republic, whether it's our seaports, our airports, in schools, in hospitals,' with a promise of educational benefits at the end of service . . .

"Rahm Emanuel has also called for universal service. His plan would be for those 18 to 25. All Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 should be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic civil defense training and community service. This is not a draft, nor is it military. Young people will be trained not as soldiers, but simply as citizens who understand their responsibilities in the event of a natural disaster, an epidemic or a terrorist attack. Universal citizen service will bring Americans of every background together to make America safer and more united in common purpose.

"Before the 2004 election, the Democrats were happy to scare young people into voting for Kerry for fear that Bush was planning to reinstate the draft. Of course, Bush and his administration have been adamantly opposed to such an idea. I suspect that most of the military would object to renewing the draft. They want to work with volunteers who will stick around and get the training necessary in today's fighting. They don't want a bunch of disgruntled conscripts who are looking to serve their time and get out as soon as possible. And even if you grant Emanuel's idea of just mandating some sort of service in the hopes that this would somehow bring everyone into an understanding of their responsibilities as citizens, the concept is just bogus.

"Why limit it to just young people? Shouldn't the middle-aged be united in a common purpose to make America safer? Oh, they have careers and families. What about Rangel's idea of extending the requirement until age 42? He doesn't seem concerned about that."

Lawrence O'Donnell cheers Rangel on:

"Well over 95% of Americans, including Congress and White House staff, have no personal connection to this war--no relative or friend serving in Iraq. Over 99% of us have made no sacrifice for this war--we have not paid one more penny of taxes nor shed a drop of family blood. One of my military relatives thinks of it this way: 'The American military is at war, but America is not at war.'

"Advocating war is easier when you and your family are not endangered by it. I've reached a Rangel-like breaking point with my TV pundit colleagues who championed the Iraq war and now say we can't leave even if we went there for the wrong reasons. For every one of them, I have a simple question: Why aren't you in Iraq? Or why did you avoid combat in your generation's war? The one unifying characteristic that all of us men in make-up on political chat shows share is fear of combat. Every one of us has done everything we can to avoid combat or even being fitted for a military uniform. Just like George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Dick Cheney, we are all combat cowards."

Gina Cobb takes a bold position against the idea:

"So Charles Rangel's position is:

"1. Everyone in America should be forced by law to work for the government (or for someone approved by the government) for two years -- either for no pay or for minimal pay.

"2. The two years of work should be demanded, not due to any national emergency of any kind, but as a political stunt to influence national policy.

"3. In service of this political stunt, people should be forced to work at wherever the government dictates -- even for what should be private employers like hospitals, seaports and airports.

"In other words, Democrat Charles Rangel advocates two years of slavery for every adult in America."

But isn't that the system we used for decades, including during World War II and Korea?

Right Off The Shore calls the proposal "infuriating. How many times have we heard the Democrats using scare tactics, especially on college campuses or directed towards the youth, claiming Republicans were going to reinstate the draft? How many ways did they use this against Republicans during the last few years? Now one of their own is proposing a draft?

"I'm not quite sure if Rangel is doing this because he actually wants to reinstate the draft, or if this is entirely to advance some ulterior motive. I heard one news station report him as saying that, and I paraphrase, if the draft is reinstated, the United States cannot enter any more wars. He may also be using this as a wedge issue against Republicans in the 2008 elections."

What? People would vote for the Democrats because they want a draft?

The New Republic's Michael Crowley notes the distancing act taking place:

"' Mr. Rangel will be very busy with his work on the Ways and Means Committee, whose jurisdiction is quite a different jurisdiction,' Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters. Ways and Means handles tax matters, not military legislation.

"Good for Pelosi, I say. Rangel's made his point (a not-unreasonable one, I'd add). But Democrats need to start zeroing in on their most popular core issues. It'll be interesting to see whether Rangel follows his leader's fairly obvious cue to pipe down."

In National Review, James Robbins tackles the military question:

"It is odd to even be discussing the draft. The Army announced that it had exceeded its recruitment goals, and the other services are meeting their benchmarks as well. Retention in the armed forces is at historic high levels. Unemployment is down, in some states at record lows. So if the services don't need the manpower, and there is no surplus labor force to draw from, why in the world have a draft?

"According to Rangel and other draft proponents, the central issue is fairness. The people who sign up for military service are disproportionately from lower-income groups, those with nowhere else to turn; thus we have what Senator Kennedy described in 1971 as 'poor people fighting rich men's wars.' The volunteer is undereducated -- perhaps not even understanding what it means to sign up, maybe not knowing there is a war on. This is inherently unfair because these people do not know any better . . .

"In addition, some aver that the All Volunteer Force (AVF) creates racial inequities, that a disproportionate number of people of color are dying overseas. The draft will cure these ills by making military service an equal-opportunity burden, one shared by all income groups, all education levels, all races. In turn, so the argument goes, this will have a moderating effect on national-security policy. A president or Congress will be less likely to go to war with a military drawn from every neighborhood, every district.

"Let's set aside for a moment the set of objections based on notion of involuntary servitude -- not because they are erroneous, which they surely are not. There is nothing fair about the government hijacking the lives of young people for its own purposes. It is antithetical to values and freedoms on which this country was founded."

Power Line's John Hinderaker shows pictures of Indonesian Muslim protesters with such signs as "We (Heart) Bush Dead," and then makes this bizarre leap:

"You can say, of course, that this is no worse than what American liberals say all the time. And it does seem likely that Muslim radicals are encouraged by the abuse that American Democrats hurl at our president. Nevertheless, assassination threats coming from fringe Muslim groups in Indonesia need to be taken a great deal more seriously than those coming from American liberals or warmed-over anti-globalization hippies."

American Prospect's Greg Sargent finds this rather offensive:

"Needless to say, none of these 'American liberals' who are threatening the assassination of Bush are named -- because there aren't any, of course."

First Daughter Barbara, robbed in Argentina, says ABC News.

Dick Polman does a little truth-squading on John McCain after his Sunday appearance on ABC's "This Week":

"He basically stated that it would be fine with him if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and thereby erased the 33-year-old federal right to an abortion. McCain said: 'I do believe that it's very likely or possible that the Supreme Court should -- could overturn Roe v. Wade, which would then return these decisions to the states, which I support . . . I do believe that we would be better off by having Roe v. Wade return to the states. And I don't believe the Supreme Court should be legislating in the way that they did on Roe v. Wade.'

"Oh really? Here's what McCain told the San Francisco Chronicle in 1999: 'Certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.' He then reiterated this argument on CNN: 'We all know, and it's obvious, that if we repeal Roe v. Wade tomorrow, thousands of young American women would be performing illegal and dangerous operations.'

"In other words, McCain was for it before he was against it. In politics (or at least when someone like John Kerry acts this way), this is known as a flip flop."

Carpetbagger Report says the current batch of 2008 polls don't mean squat:

"The bottomline is this: these polls are all but meaningless. Perhaps nothing illustrates this point better than looking back at polls from this point in the last election cycle. For example, a Fox News poll conducted in January of 2003 (which was closer to the election than we are now) reported the following results:

"Joe Lieberman, 29%

"Dick Gephardt, 15%

"John Kerry, 13%

"John Edwards, 8%

"Al Sharpton, 5%

"Howard Dean, 2%

"In fact, throughout 2002 and much of 2003, Joe Lieberman led in virtually every poll. Did that mean that Lieberman had some deep base of support among Democratic primary voters? Of course not. All this reflected was the fact that Lieberman had the highest name recognition of anyone in the field by virtue of his status as the Vice Presidential candidate in 2000.

"Most primary voters don't really start to pay attention until much closer to the election. They don't know who many of the candidates are, and even when they do, they often don't know much about them.

"Take Rudy Giuliani, for example. He polls well because most people know who he is. But I suspect most Republican voters don't know very much about the guy, and the more they learn, the more likely they will be to reconsider their support. Conversely, most Republican primary voters don't know who Mitt Romney is. But, like Howard Dean in 2004, Romney may well emerge as a real contender as we get closer to the actual primaries.

"The Democratic side is even more interesting. Four out of the five candidates topping the polls are people who have significant name recognition. Gore, Kerry, and Edwards are all former national candidates. And Hillary is, well, Hillary. But notice that the least well known (by far) among the five, Barack Obama, is already polling at 23%. That strikes me as far more significant than any other data point in the poll."

Marshall Wittmann, the Bull Moose blogger, who has worked for the Christian Coalition, McCain and the DLC, is jumping to Joe Lieberman, and that merits a NYT story.

Speaking of '08, Newt has a unique approach, as Jason Zengerle observes:

"Most presidential aspirants are being coy at this point about whether they're actually running. But Newt Gingrich has taken the coy formula and mixed it with healthy doses of condescension and grandiosity. From a Fortune profile of the nascent candidate:

"' I'm going to tell you something, and whether or not it's plausible given the world you come out of is your problem,' he tells Fortune. 'I am not 'running' for president. I am seeking to create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen.

"We're not worthy, we're not worthy."