See previous related: Rangel says he’ll introduce a bill to bring back the draft   

Draft-mongering Dems 
Michelle Malkin 

They just can't help themselves.

In case you needed to be reminded which party puts playing politics with the war above serious solutions, here's the video of Rep. Charlie Rangel on Sunday resurrecting the draft--as a way to deter the White House and Congress from launching wars. And for those who think his motives actually have something to do with the situation on the ground in Iraq, Rangel makes clear it's all just a gesture:

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We already have a National Health Service Corps, AmeriCorps, National Civilian Community Corps, VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), and Citizen Corps Councils/Fire Corps/Medical Reserve Corps.

I'm having flashbacks to the fall of 2004, when liberal activists, top Dems, and the MSM spread draft rumors in an attempt to scare young people into voting against...Republicans. MTV did it (Oct. 28, 2004):

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Max Cleland and Howard Dean did it (Sept. 17, 2004):

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... Bogus draft e-mails spread across campuses. CBS and NBC ran alarmist pieces without disclosing the anti-war biases of their supposedly neutral interview subjects.

And now, after all that anti-Bush sound and fury, we have the incoming Democrat chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee proposing what all those fear-mongers claimed a GOP administration would do. Where are all the cluck-cluckers now? ...

Democrat Plan Summarized in One Word: Draft
Scott Ott

(2006-11-20) -- Rep. Charles Rangel, D-NY, yesterday unveiled the Democrat plan for boosting the minimum wage, providing free healthcare to millions more Americans, increasing college attendance, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preventing future U.S. wars of aggression.

“Our plan is so simple and elegant that it can be stated in one word — draft,” said Rep. Rangel. “By implementing a military draft, we’ll provide a living wage and free healthcare to our new involuntary soldiers and their families, plus we’ll give them college money after their term of service.” ...

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Forced To Govern, Part 1
Ed Morrissey

The Democrats spent the last six years sniping from the sidelines without publicizing much of their own agenda. They made the valid point that any agenda they would propose would not get to the floor of the House or Senate under Republican control, and they concluded that they had no responsibility to formulate one -- at least not publicly. For three straight electoral cycles, they ran as the anti-GOP, and they finally succeeded in the last election in wresting control of Congress.

Unfortunately, that forces the Democrats to actually pursue a political agenda -- and from what they've shown the voters, that should result in a very short time at the helm. First, Charles Rangel decided to revive the draft again, an idea he floated three years ago to the delight of Republicans:

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Rangel actually gave a number of reasons in the past for reinstituting the draft, but bolstering the war effort in Iraq wasn't among them. Even yesterday, he told an interviewer that the main reason was to discourage the deployment of troops anywhere. He again made the claim -- refuted by an exhaustive Heritage Foundation study -- that the poor and powerless are overrepresented in the military.

This is, on its face, ludicrous. We have an all-volunteer army, which means that no group gets forced into overrepresentation. Rangel wants to make the typical liberal case that adults are incapable of free choice, and that government exists to protect them from the consequences of those choices. The volunteer military produces more motivated recruits and a more disciplined military corps than America has ever fielded in the past, because the men and women who comprise it chose to be there.  ...

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Pelosi nixes Rangel’s bill to bring back the draft
Allahpundit

Oddly enough, the leadership of the anti-war party doesn’t think conscription is in its political interest:

Pelosi, having just concluded a meeting with incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, to discuss the Democratic agenda, said the leadership will not support the measure.

“It’s not about a draft it’s about shared sacrifice in our country,” Pelosi told reporters in her Capitol Hill office…

When asked directly if she supported the measure, Pelosi said “No. No.” ...

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DO NOT miss Blackfive's post here.  I won't excerpt any of it for fear of making you miss the rest.

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Democrats Feel a Draft
Dafydd ab Hugh

This weekend, the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY, 100%), whipped his hobby horse into a frothing gallup: he insists upon trying to ram a restoration of the military draft through Congress -- as a way to "deter wars" by making military action as politically costly as it was during the Vietnam war.

Has there ever been a more blatant example of politicizing the military? Imagine that: Charles Rangel actually hopes that unwilling American conscripts will be killed, because that would cause political problems for the (presumably Republican) president who sent them into harm's way.

Here is his reasoning, straight from the horse's mouth:

"There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way," Rangel said.

Well for heaven's sake, who does he imagine the congressional representatives from Texas, Virginia, the Carolinas, and even California and New York thought would be sent to Iraq? The First Regiment of Venus?

I believe that Charles Rangel's problem is that he's permanently stuck in the 60s: for him, the entire military consists of "people of color" who join up because the segregated schools won't educate them, and the all-white lunch counters won't give them jobs. He knows in his heart that "whitey" never has to go to war; that Operation Iraqi Freedom was conducted entirely by black, Hispanic, female, and gay soldiers (the latter Shanghaied under the "don't ask, don't yell" conscription rule).

Thus, he believes that if white people (and Jews) were "forced" to serve, all these war things would come to a screeching halt. ...

... In reality, the American armed forces pretty much mirror American society; neither the force itself nor the subset who suffer casualties is any more "of color" than the general populace. Recruitment and even retention of Iraq-war veterans are at all-time highs; and as Sen. John Kerry (D-MA, 100%) just found out to his discomfiture, an awful lot of soldiers, sailor, airmen, and Marines are well-educated college grads who would have little trouble getting a good job in this great economy... especially if they were "people of color."

But shhh! Don't tell Rep. Rangel... it's dangerous to awaken a sleepwalker.