We Support Our Dupes

John Kerry tried to deny it until his own Web site tried to defend it.  Now, Charlie Rangel, even confronted with statistical evidence to the contrary, comes right out and states one of the minor premises  of the “back door draft” argument:  only an idiot with nowhere else to go would join the United States military.  It’s all right here, on video. 

We all remember the dishonest suggestion, mostly just before the  2004 election,  that a Bush reelection would mean the return of the draft.  This was a naked effort to inflame young voters with a baseless charge, and it seems to have worked with some.  As Rangel well knows, if a Republican administration were to attempt to bring the draft back, there would be a mighty outpouring of opposition from the surrender lobby and the escapists.  That’s precisely the disingenuous reason why Rangel offers it up, as a thinly-veiled effort to undermine the entire war effort for political advantage.  It would not simply undermine the war effort in Iraq, but everywhere else, too, by pitting the whole of the U.S. military against the young and the political left.  The silence of  the surrender lobby  in the face of Rangel’s suggestion is the most compelling evidence of its dishonest and unpatriotic motives.  They’re not upset because they see the real motives behind Rangel’s false argument for a more equitable military.

Rangel ends up trying not to sound elitist by saying that he was one of many without other opportunities who ended up in the military.  In the process, he unintentionally confirms much of what I’d long suspected about Charlie Rangel, who is about to chair a committee of Congress.  This one’s for you, Charlie: