the small and the large
Mark Evanier opens his big mouth (and I mean that in a good way) with a couple of political rants–that’s what he calls them–today, one big, the other smaller.
The first is the small one, on those urging Kerry to “go big.” I received an e-mail from MoveOn asking me to sign a petition to that effect. I chose not to do so, partly because Arianna Huffington is involved, and I consider her to be at best untrustworthy. At worst, a contemptible opportunist who cynically changed sides when it looked like there wasn’t enough room in the spotlight as a conservative. And the liberals promptly forgot about everything she’d said about Clinton and/or done to try to get her empty suit of a husband elected. But mostly, I didn’t sign MoveOn’s petition for reasons similar to those Mark gives here.
Mark’s second rant of note is about the draft and contains this wise little snippet:
“One of the big arguments in the sixties against a Volunteer Army was its cost. Some suggested it was distasteful and unwise to try and pay soldiers enough to make the military an attractive career alternative. I remember a guest on the old Lou Gordon talk show actually arguing that a good soldier was there out of patriotism, not avarice, and that as pay scales went up, the character of the American Soldier would go down. Gordon asked him how he felt about draftees who didn’t want to be there at all, and the guy fumbled out some double-talk about how no one really didn’t want to go to Vietnam…that was a lie of the liberal press. When reality fails you, blame the media.”
