CBS recently ran a piece on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather on the "fears" some people have that the US will re-institute the military draft if Bush is re-elected. Note the following facts: (1) the House of Representatives has a bill pending to reinstate the draft, but that legislation has no chance of passing because the only sponsors are 14 of the most liberal Reps; (2) Bush has repeatedly said he will not reinstate the draft (Kerry has also said he will not reinstate the draft); (3) the emails circulating about a reinstatement of the draft under Bush are a complete hoax because there is no chance of a draft reinstatement.
CBS dedicated one of about six or seven news story-segments to this hoax and the baseless worries of some anti-draft activists. That is, it based 14% of its 30-minute news program on a story with a false premise. So basically, CBS did a story about a hoax as if it was real and treated people suckered by the hoax as parties with valid viewpoints, like treating the anti-flouride nutsacks as credible sources on tooth decay. CBS comes out worse here. Two words: media bias.
The main interviewee was Beverly Cocco, who CBS characterized as a Republican one-issue undecided voter, although she has ties to the group People Against the Draft, a fact CBS did not show in its broadcast. Her "Republican" background is also questionable. On the link in the title, the Mudville Gazette says everything necessary to defend the full volunteer army:
Speaking only for myself, an American serving in uniform in Iraq, there's little I fear more than having the determined, confident, and competent young sons and daughters of our nation that I see here daily replaced by some group of conscripts torn kicking and screaming from their mother's skirts and forced to become something that only faintly resembles the effective members of our armed forces that are currently far from home and risking all for a cause they believe in.
All the best to our troops, sailors, airmen and marines.
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