Republicans and the Draft

It is entirely plausible that a draft will be reinstated after the election, provided George W. Bush wins. Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska recently called for exactly that.

In late-April or early-May, just as the Abu Ghraib mess was taking hold, I heard Rush Limbaugh himself suggest the desirability of a draft (can't yet locate a transcript, however). I had a creepy, hair-raising feeling I was listening to a White-House-approved trial balloon, a GOP talking point for the future. The creepiness was heightened by murky darkness: I was listening to the rebroadcast of Rush's earlier daytime show, on KFBK-1510 AM, at about 10 p.m., as I drove from Davis to Sacramento across the I-80 Yolo causeway.

Despite the recent House vote to kill New York Democrat Chuck Rangel's fairness-inspired draft bill (which had been sidelined for over a year until the GOP saw its partisan attack value and rushed it to the floor, forcing even Rangel himself to vote against it), a re-elected Bush administration will likely bring the draft back at the first politically opportune moment.