Priorities

So today, the Iraq Study Group issued its report. The war in Iraq is undoubtedly the major policy issue for America today, and the ISG report is the starting point for discussions on the right policy for success. Given John Kline's bedrock support for the U.S. occupation of Iraq, as well as his emphatic disagreement with the report's conclusions, one might expect him to make a statement about it. So far, nothing.

But Kline hasn't been completely silent since the election. On one issue, Kline has spoken up loudly and often (well, twice), and that issue is his adamant opposition to reinstating the draft. Here's a taste of his strawman argument:

It is outrageous that a small but vocal number of antiwar activists are willing to undermine the effectiveness and safety of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to advance their opposition to the war. While a draft might do wonders for swelling the ranks of bitter veterans who would protest U.S. foreign policy, it would do great harm to our national security.

No one --- Kline included --- thinks that Charlie Rangel's resolution to reinstate the draft has a snowball's chance in hell of passing. Yet Kline has chosen to write not one, but two foaming rants opposing it, rather than saying anything substantive about Iraq and what to do there.

And as far as undermining "the effectiveness and safety of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines," the provision Kline and the House Armed Services Committee quietly inserted into a military appropriations bill effectively ending all oversight of reconstruction efforts in Iraq is far more damaging than Rangel's purely symbolic bill ever could be.