Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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John Kerry is now echoing Internet hoaxes! [Note: Yahoo changed the story, so I changed to a different page with the AP version.]

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, citing the war in Iraq and other trouble spots in the world, raised the possibility Wednesday that a military draft could be reinstated if voters re-elect President Bush.

Kerry said he would not bring back the draft and questioned how fairly it was administered in the past.

Answering a question about the draft that had been posed at a forum with voters, Kerry said: "If George Bush were to be re-elected, given the way he has gone about this war and given his avoidance of responsibility in North Korea and Iran and other places, is it possible? I can't tell you."

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials have been asked numerous times whether they thought a draft would be necessary to maintain force levels in Iraq. They have said consistently that they think it is neither necessary nor desirable, since today's military is built on volunteer service and professionalism.

What next, is Kerry going to denounce the U.S. Postal Service's plan to tax e-mail?

This is not the move of a campaign confident about where it is in the polls.

UPDATE: Good heavens, this is the new message from all corners of the party! From John Edwards and Max Cleland and Howard Dean!

Here’s Dean:

Former Kerry rival Howard Dean, now traveling the country to drum up support for Kerry and raise money for Democratic candidates, said last week at Brown University in Providence, R.I., “I think that George Bush is certainly going to have a draft if he goes into a second term, and any young person that doesn't want to go to Iraq might think twice about voting for him.”

The leadership of the Democratic Party really does want to bring back the spirit of 1968: the anger, the societal divisions, the distrust, the protests in the streets, and the cultivation of an anti-American subculture. And their own lawmakers are introducing legislation to reinstate the draft in order to make it happen. Not one Republican has signed on to the legislation restoring the draft, and Rummy and Co. have sworn to high heaven that they don’t want one or need one — it would create more problems than it solves.

I have many Democratic friends who I think highly of. Well, I hope they’re proud of their leaders in this shining moment.

[Posted 09/22 04:05 PM]