A Call for Service (Warning: WaPo?David Broder intellectual twerp alert)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ ^ | Mat 25,2003 | David S. Broder

[eeman]

Another Memorial Day finds the American people once again acknowledging the debt we owe the men and women who serve this nation in uniform.

The skill and valor they demonstrated in rolling up the opposition in Iraq is but the latest evidence of the quality of the people in the armed forces. Cynical as reporters are supposed to be, none of those I know who were embedded with units in the Persian Gulf came back with anything but the deepest admiration for those whose actions they covered.

----SNIP------

Is it wrong to suggest that those who are the recipients of this national investment might be asked to give something back to their community and their country? I do not think so.

----SNIP-----

Meanwhile, we know that large unmet needs abound in this society. In the past few months I have gone to briefings on reports documenting the looming staffing crises in nursing, in teaching, in a wide variety of social services....(and blah blah blah, I am sure you can tell where this is going without going to the source)

[eeman]

This editorial is like going to a sleazy used car dealership. He starts out praising the valor of our armed forces and then using that as an arugment to mandate non military conscripted service.

FYI: If you don't want to register with the WaPo, go the "personalize your post" page and use

member name: annoying

password: annoying.

This works also at the LA times. Alas it no longer works at the NYT--because they spend more time validating their internet user database than validating their news/editorial content

[Leisler]

Senator "Lurch" Kerry put this out and Broder is looking for a new butt hole to lamprey suck to for the next 4 years.

[eeman]

There was also a lot of advocacy of this from (ironically) Hillary Clinton and a black democrat congressman in February, except they were even more disingenuous. They were advocating military conscription knowing full well that today's military does not want, nor could it handle a large number of conscriptees. Therefore, the "excess conscriptees" could perform valuable service like, printing flyers for PETA, manning (oops, can't use that word) at NOW

[Timesink]

Two words, Broder: YOU FIRST.

[Reactionary]

No kidding. Broder is insinuating that risking your life in military service isn't enough. No. What's needed, you see, is for service personel to "give something back" to society by contributing even more. And wouldn't you know? Broder knows exactly which careers are really the ones that help society. He knows all about it.

Broder is a paternalistic moral windbag, and the only thing he's ever given to society is a load of moralistic tripe.

[OpusatFR]

Do you think this journo would come with our group, the one that people volunteer to do out of the goodness of their hearts and concept of civic duty?

There are millions of people young, old and inbetween who serve every day.

Just like a liberal. A day late and a dollar short.

[eeman]

To Broder's credit, he did serve two years in the army in the 1960's. So he is not a complete hypocrite, unlike Hillary who advocates conscripted service based on the exemplary service provided by her husband

I got this information from Broder's bio page at washingtonpost.com. One amusing tidbit is that in 1990, a survey by Washingtonian magazine rated Broder "Least Ideological" among 123 columnists. Thank God we have other forums like this, the internet in general and talk radio. I am sure the journalist there still see him as non-idealogical and us as village idiots

[eeman]

You have to be a liberal to use the outstanding example provided by our volunteer armed forces as an argument for mandated non-military service. Us conservatives are too stupid to understand it.