RUSH: Ed in Paradise, California. I’m glad you called, and you are up first today on Open Line Friday. Hi.
CALLER: Hi. How you doing, Rush?
RUSH: Just fine, sir.
CALLER: Mega dittos.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.
CALLER: Been trying to talk to you since your Sacramento days.
RUSH: Well, this is your lucky day.
CALLER: I want to address the draft, Rush. There’s been a lot of talk about it all week on the news media, talk shows. You know, I’m all for the draft. I think the draft served its purpose. It was a very important issue back in the Fifties and Sixties. Many of my friends that I grew up with were drafted. When they got out, they had a whole new view on our country and on life. I think the draft taught the men to respect authority, built a pride in them. Usually it taught them a trade; when they got out, they could find a job, which probably they wouldn’t have done hanging around after high school. In my opinion, Rush, I think the Army is a better place to have these guys than hanging out on street corners selling crack.
RUSH: Let me ask you a quick question.
CALLER: Yeah?
RUSH: You know that Bush is not going to do it.
CALLER: I know he’s not.
RUSH: Bush is not going to do it, and the Pentagon says they’re not going to do it. There is no need for a draft; whoever is getting all this talk started doesn’t know what they’re talking about. But, without debating the merits of the draft with you because it’s six of one and half dozen of another, let’s say that Hillary or some Democrat wins the White House in ’08. Do you think they — do you think the Democrat Party — would lead a move to reinstitute the draft?
CALLER: No, I don’t.
RUSH: You don’t?
CALLER: No. Because their idea and the liberal left’s agenda is to make our military weak, and whenever word comes out that the Army isn’t meeting their quota this month, we might not make the quota for the year, oh, they’re happy as can be! The news announcers on TV got big grins on their face. ‘The Army isn’t going to make their quota, oh, boy!’
RUSH: Well, that’s just the monthly. They’ve been meeting their goals year to year, but you’re right in the way they report it. I’m not so sure the Democrats wouldn’t do it. Your point is they loathe the military and want to keep it weak and so forth, but they’ve also got this notion here of they like ‘common suffering,’ and they like ‘common sacrifice,’ and precisely because of their less-than-charitable view of the military, what better way to get people to hate it than start drafting their kids? So, I wouldn’t put it past them. Your instincts on this are probably correct, but I wouldn’t put it past them. Thanks for the call.