Brazen lies from Democrats on the draft

Scott Tibbs
blog post
October 4^th, 2004

Brazen lies from Democrats on the draft

From yesterday's Sunday Herald-Times: Despite bills, military draft not at all likely.

As I pointed out here last month, it is Leftist Democrat Charlie Rangel who introduced the bill to re-establish the draft in the House of Representatives. Another Leftist Democrat introduced the bill in the Senate.

But that has not prevented critics of President Bush from distributing misinformation about the bill. Arnold Shuster writes in the IDS:

There is pending legislation in the Republican-controlled House and Senate (companion bills: S89 and HR 163) that will time the program's initiation so that the draft can begin as early as Spring 2005, just after the 2004 presidential election. The administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed now while the public's attention is on the elections, so our action is needed on this immediately.

This is a blatant, brazen, bold-faced lie. As I mentioned above, it is Democrats who introduced the bill, not Republicans and not the Bush Administration. Shuster intentionally misleads by blaming the "Republican-controlled" Congress for bills introduced by Rangel and Fritz Hollings.

This leads me to suspect that this was planned from the beginning.

Did the Democrats introduce bills to revive the draft in a time of war so they (or their operatives) could blame President Bush and the GOP for those bills later on?

The Republicans are, in my opinion, making a mistake by not launching a fierce counterattack against this campaign of lies. The facts are clear and easily verified. While young people tend not to vote, their parents and grandparents do, and the GOP should not allow Democrats and Democratic operatives to use misleading and dishonest smear tactics to frighten people into believing a draft is imminent.