Pelosi Cuts Rangel Off At The Knees
Well, Charlie Rangel's plan to try and reinstate the draft was thoroughly hammered by the Democratic leadership today. Both in the House and in the Senate, Charlie got a very cold shoulder. Pelosi publicly slapped him down, telling reporters that his post as chairman of the Ways and Means committee would not give him an effective platform to try and push that agenda. The political equivalent of a kneecapping.
"I don't favor it," said Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, who is set to chair the Senate Armed Services Committee when Democrats take over both houses of Congress from Republicans in January.
"I don't think we need it," added Levin, whose panel oversees military programs. He spoke to reporters after meeting with Robert Gates, President George W. Bush's choice to replace retiring Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
The top two Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives also voiced their opposition to a plan being pushed by Rep. Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat, for drafting soldiers into the army for the first time since 1973. The idea is not supported by Republicans either.
"We did not include that" in legislative plans for early next year, said Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, who will be House majority leader when the new Congress convenes in January.
Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California noted her opposition to the draft in remarks to reporters. She said Rangel was trying to underscore that the U.S. war effort should be a "shared sacrifice" and his legislation was "a way to make that point."
Rangel, who is in line to chair the House Ways and Means Committee next year, has renewed his call for the draft, saying the war in Iraq is being fought by American soldiers who disproportionately are from low-income families and minorities.
Rangel is, of course, stating a flat lie with that allegation. He knows it but he keeps telling it over and over.
By crosspatch, November 20, 2006 @ 3:52 pm
“Rangel is, of course, stating a flat lie with that allegation.”
Trouble is that it feeds a common misperception that the people of this country have. They believe the majority of combat troops are poor minorities. When I was in the Army, it was the support units not the combat units that had the highest percentage of minorities. Combat units were mostly white middle class. In the most elite units, the ones who would be expected to see the most combat under the harshest conditions, the percentage of minorities was even lower.
I believe the reason is economic. If someone doesn’t believe they are going to get a shot at going to a good college, they join the service to learn to drive a truck or repair a plane, or operate heavy engineering machinery so they can get a good career after the service. If your plans are to go to college, you go for the jobs that give the most college and financial incentives, the combat arms.
I would say a larger percentage of troops enlisting in the combat arms are there for college money than in support units and those in support units are there more for job skill training than college money. But those are merely my own personal perceptions.