June 02, 2004

Just Another Stupid Meme

The #2 story on Blogdex right now is a scarily headlined item ominously warning that the military draft will be returning imminently. Never mind that it's both an old story and a non-story.

As reported by an obscure website called Congress.org, "There is pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills: S 89 and HR 163) which will time the program's initiation so the draft can begin at early as Spring 2005- just after the 2004 presidential election."

Except, of course, it's bullshit. S 89 and HR 163 were two bills introduced by Democrats- Fritz Hollings and Charles Rangel, respectively, on January 7, 2003- 16 months ago and two months before the start of the Gulf War. They were introduced merely to prove a point and, of course, neither bill has gone anywhere since. And unless they're plotting secretly (which is of course possible), the Bush Administration has no current plans to reinstate the draft, either before or after the presidential election.

Why it's listed, today, as a "soapbox" alert- and why enough blogs have linked to it to make it the #2 story on Blogdex- remains a mystery.

Posted by Stephen Silver at June 2, 2004 08:23 PM
Comments

It's probably up there because of the extended enlistments, and enough bloggers are confusing that with a draft.

"Subject to the requirements of the service"

Posted by: Bill McCabe at June 2, 2004 08:41 PM

Why is it so strange? There have been enough Bush haters spawned that they all flock to any speck of a story that backs their position, regardless of facts.

Posted by: marc at June 3, 2004 12:15 AM
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