oh, p.s-charlie rangel stating that he supports a return to the draft was just plain dumb, even if his intentions were good.
i believe that what he was trying to say was:
a-u.s troops are stretched dangerously thin in iraq and afghanistan and the u.s military is over-extended and not capable of dealing with other problems that might arise.
and
b-the military is primarily comprised of lower income minorities, and that if the military looked more like america then perhaps americans(and politicians) might not be so keen to send troops into harms way.
both are good points, good points delivered in an egregiously clumsy way.
i’m happy to criticize democrats when democrats do dumb things.
it’s just that the ‘dumb things’ department has been kind of monopolized by the republicans for the last 6 years.
hopefully these little embarassments(charlie rangel advocating a return to the draft, unnecessary internecine battles for house majority leader, etc)will remind the democrats of the old ‘united we stand, divided we fall’ credo.
the democrats do need to remember that they were only elected because the republicans were doing such a bad job running the government.
the democrats weren’t elected on the strength of their platform, they were elected on the back of republican scandals and ineptitude and deceit, and the democrats would do really well to remember that.
hopefully they’ll(the democrats)get the stupidity out of their system and govern responsibly
come january and the new session.
-moby