Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

Kerry seems to think the fear of a draft plays well with young men and women:

“With George Bush, the plan for Iraq is more of the same and the great potential of the draft.”

Dubya has been about as emphatic as he can be:

Bush has flatly ruled out reinstating the draft. “We’re not going to have a draft, period. The all-volunteer army works,” Bush said during last week’s debate in St. Louis.

Just on the face of it, I know which man has integrity, and which one says his mother told him integrity was important while she lay on her deathbed.

The real question people aged 18 to 26 should ask themselves is why would we ever have a draft again.

Let me give you a military answer: Never. Let me give you a political answer: If we get into a war with a major power and need to rapidly mobilize forces in the million-man range.

Military professionals have little use for draftees. They provide no continuity in the long run because they will leave at their first opportunity. (Some will stay when they find they actually like it.) In the short term they are a huge training burden and pull competent people from line jobs for that training. And they are often going to be attitude problems without a thought as to what the consequences of a dishonorable discharge really are. “You want to kick me out? Go for it!” Even those with minor attitude problems can cause significant disruptions in an organization.

So, we have the current Commander-in-Chief saying there is no way he will institute a draft. And we have Democrats in Congress (only two actually voted for it) attempting to start it back up. And we have the man who wants to be Commander-in-Chief, another Democrat, trying to convince voters that the President wants a draft, but he doesn’t.

Is this really a Neil Simon play?