The Draft - Below The Radar

Great job by Bill at INDC Journal for his interview with the CBS folks behind their recent "Is the draft coming back" scare story.

Now, my question - Max Cleland and Howard Dean have been talking up the probability that Bush will bring back the draft when they speak at college campuses. So, I wonder, what will we find if we go to ground zero in some of the swing states? What is being reported at in the student newspapers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison? At Ohio State? At Penn State? At Florida, or FSU?

Let's find out.

University of Wisconsin, Madison, "The Badger Herald", Sept 24, 2004:

Possible military draft concerns Madisonians

by Megan Costello; Friday, September 24, 2004

This story is first in a three-part series covering aspects of the military draft and the effect on young adults.

Well, the first of three parts preps us on how to avoid the draft, but makes no mention of its improbabilty.

However, this story, "Rumors of reinstating the draft continue to circulate", from Sept 23, more or less passes my "fair and balanced" test, once you get past the scary headline and the first few paragraphs. They fail to note that the bills in Congress are Dem-sponsored, don't mention the Selective Service announcement, and don't dredge up news clippings of Bush or Rumsfeld saying "no way", but they do communicate the notion that this draft issue is scaremongering by the Dems.

Ohio State: The Lantern has a discouraging registration requirement. However, from their search engine I conclude that draft talk there mainly concerns the NFL. They do show some articles on the military draft from April and May, but there is no sign of current hysteria (or interest).

Penn State [UPDATE: If I said these are Nittanys, I'm lyin'; what follows is U Penn in Philly]: Aha! The Daily Pennsylvanian reports on a Sept. 14 campus appearance by Terry McAuliffe, and tells us this:

[McAuliffe] continued along the typical themes of the Democratic Party, claiming that Bush had created no jobs, endangered the country, lied about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and may reintroduce the military draft.

However, this issue is not getting other play that I can find with their search engine.

Florida: The University of Florida Alligator ran a scare story in June, but seems to have lost interest, if I can rely on their search engine.

At Florida State University, the FS View is not discussing a military draft (per their search engine). However, this Sept. 6 beat-down of Kerry is a classic. Rock the Vote, indeed.

OK, the Big Finish seems to be, I got bored so you don't have to. Other than at the U of Wisconsin, Madison, which vies with Berkeley in their own special competition, it appears that the Dems have a lot of work to do to promote this particular scare story.

MORE: Groan. OK, since Cleland spoke at Colorado College, and Dean spoke at Brown, I should check those papers.

From Brown, we see this account of the Dean speech, and excerpt this:

Dean, the former governor of Vermont, told The Herald he has been speaking on college campuses in his work in support of Sen. John Kerry because college students have a stake in preventing a reinstitution of the military draft. "(Bush) has now dug himself into a really deep hole, and I think a draft is inevitable if he's reelected," he said.

Their search engine suggests no post-Dean flurry of interest in this issue.

Meanwhile, at Colorado College the student newspaper is "the Catalyst", but I am not getting any reaction online.

Comments

[abb1]

...don't dredge up news clippings of Bush or Rumsfeld saying "no way"...

But what would be the point of dredging - why would anyone believe anything politicians are saying on this subject in the middle of the election campaign? They also don't say: "we'll need to raise taxes" while everyone knows this is what they'll have to do if they win. When you know draft's coming - you know draft's coming.

[George]

When you know draft's coming - you know draft's coming.

More unassailable logic from abb1.

[Mitch H.]

Apparently the head of the DNC, an ex-senator, and a failed presidential candidate are not politicians from the viewpoint of your average blogroach.

BTW, the Daily Pennsylvanian seems to be the paper for the University of Pennsylvania, aka Penn. Penn State's paper is called the Collegian. Damn. The online version of the Collegian is even uglier than the print version was when I was a student.

Hrm. I'm both surprised and proud of the Collegian. Their one article on the draft proposals was back in 2003 when Rangel was ranting about it, and it blamed Rangel for the furor. I don't remember the Collegian as having been a particularly responsible or sane publication...

[TM]

Well, thanks very much for the correction and the update from Penn State.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Don't forget Gilda Radner checking on the U of Miami:

http://flyunderthebridge.blogspot.com/2004/09/emily-litellas-favorite-interviewer.html

[John]

My son at Penn says it's a non-issue. Kids are aware that it's being used as a partisan tactic.

[Kane]

I've been trying to retrace my steps of the last few days (after dumping my history files)because I know I saw a deleted page from the Kerry website detailing his highschool/college two-year military service plan- red meat from the "draft is coming" candidate (how I loathe Kerry's lies). Can anyone dig up an archive on this, because I know it's out there.

Thanks!

[abb1]

LA Times:

U.S. Military Is Stretched Too Thin, Defense Board Warns

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military lacks sufficient personnel to meet the nation's current war and peacekeeping demands throughout the world in coming years, despite steps being taken by the Army to stretch its ranks and increase the number of soldiers available for combat, according to a Pentagon advisory board.

The report by the Defense Science Board, a panel of outside advisors to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, argues that "inadequate total numbers" of troops mean the United States can "not sustain our current and projected global stabilization commitments." Army initiatives to create more combat brigades out of its 10 active divisions are "important, but partial, steps toward enhanced stabilization operations," the panel said.
[...]
Officials in the Army remain concerned that the lengthy deployments will eventually take a toll on the all-volunteer force. On Wednesday, Defense officials said the Army had met most of its recruiting goals for 2004, yet might have more difficulty meeting them next year. The Army National Guard expects to fall roughly 5,000 soldiers short of its 2004 recruiting goal of 56,000.

[Cecil Turner]

"On Wednesday, Defense officials said the Army had met most of its recruiting goals for 2004 . . ."

Correct. The last detailed figures indicated:

• "The retention for the active components is over 100 percent of target, and reserve component retention is about 99 percent."
• "In the National Guard, retention is almost 101 percent."
• "Army Reserve recruiting also is going well, and the component expects 102 percent of its goal . . ."
• "National Guard officials said that they will be short about 5,000 prior-service personnel . . ."

If the need is to expand the size of the force, recruiting more is the obvious answer (which is one of Kerry's proposals, IIRC). But it should be obvious that recruiting (or a draft) won't address the shortage of "prior-service personnel," especially since it's largely caused by stop-loss. In fact, a draft is a total non-sequitur, which is probably why nobody responsible is even suggesting it.