Scripting News: Restarting the draft

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

Restarting the draft

Two events happened in Washington politics in the last couple of days that puzzled me: 1. Karl Rove, on his way out at the White House, said Hillary Clinton is a "a tough, tenacious, fatally flawed candidate;" and 2. Douglas Lute, our "war czar," said the option of restarting the draft was "on the table."

I figured out why the czar said what he said -- it's the military, sending a message to the President, in clear terms. We can't keep running the way we're running, and if you won't do something about the shortfall of soldiers for the war in Iraq (really an occupation, of course) we'll take the issue to the people, in a way you'll feel. No doubt, even talk of a return to the draft changes things. I think it's a good idea to talk about it, and quite possibly a good idea to reinstate it. That would get us out of this mode of life-as-usual. We are losing in Iraq, pointlessly, and eventually we're going to have to leave. Yes, cut and run is looking like the right way to go, esp when the cut part could be explained as "cut our losses."

Why Rove said what he said, though, is a total puzzle. I am uninspired by Clinton as a candidate, I think a vote for her is a vote for another four or eight years of not dealing with our problems, and she's the most Republican of the Democrats running. But Rove is no idiot, not about things like this, so he must figure that it would serve the Republicans if Hillary was the candidate, because that kind of hype really helps her. I found myself, inside, rallying behind Clinton because I so despise Rove. No kidding. So there must be some reason Rove thinks she'd be easier to beat than Edwards or Obama. Or maybe he's figured we all understand how his (twisted) mind works, and he's telling us this so we won't rally behind Clinton because secretly he knows she's the strongest Dem, and would much rather run against... Oh fuck it, this is pointless. ";->"

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:01:26 PM

~About the Author~

Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

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Jul Sep