Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Kerry's draft lie

Jack Kelly:

Two recent polls indicate the presidential race has tightened again to within the margin of error. John Kerry made it clear that this isn't true in a speech in Florida Sept. 22.

In response to a question after a speech in West Palm Beach, Kerry said President Bush might bring back the military draft if he is re-elected.

This has become a meme among Democrats.

"There will be no draft when John Kerry is president," said vice presidential candidate John Edwards.

"America will reinstate the military draft" if Bush is re-elected, said former Sen. Max Cleland, a Kerry surrogate, in a speech at Colorado College.

"I think that George Bush is certainly going to have a draft if he goes into a second term, and any young person who doesn't want to go to Iraq might think twice about voting for him," said former Kerry rival Howard Dean at a speech at Brown University in Rhode Island.

Web logger Betsy Newmark said that college students at the University of Arizona have been getting an e-mail that says: "There is pending legislation in the House and Senate, S 80 and HR 163, to reinstate mandatory draft for boys and girls (ages 18-26) starting June 15, 2005. This plan includes women in the draft, eliminates higher education as a shelter, and makes it difficult to cross into Canada.

"The Bush administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed now, while the public's attention is on the elections. The Bush administration plans to begin mandatory draft in the spring of 2005, just after the 2004 presidential election."

There are bills in the House and Senate calling for reinstitution of conscription. They have attracted a handful of sponsors and cosponsors, all of whom are Democrats.

The bills are going nowhere, because the Bush administration strongly opposes them, as do about three-quarters of the members of Congress.

President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have said repeatedly that America does not need a draft to fight the war on terror.

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The draft is an artifact of a bygone era. We would sooner bring back the musket or the crossbow than the draft, because military leaders recognize the U.S. armed forces are the best in the world in large part because they are all volunteer.

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Kerry's lie about the draft is of a parcel with Democratic claims to seniors that Republicans will end Social Security, or to blacks that Republicans will bring back segregation. It is as much a sign of desperation as it is of a lack of integrity

Before Bill Clinton cut the military to its current size, we had a much larger all voluntary military. Many of those who were subjected to the reduction in force, would have preferred to stay in the military. There has been no evidence that the military has not been able to meet its recruiting goals since the war started. Republicans who control the House and Senate, should bring the Democrat bills to a vote and vote them down and show the country that the only people in favor of the draft are Democrats.