Blogging up a storm? Well batten down the hatches, 'cause it ain't over yet.

Dave Kopel of FahrenHYPE 9-11 fame (which also features former NYC mayor Ed Koch and former Clinton advisor Dick Morris) has a report on the reporting of false reports: the draft hoax:

Both papers, and CBS, would have done better to point out that the congressional draft bill sponsors were not really people who wanted a stronger military, but were 16 far-left Democratic representatives who wanted just the opposite. As the excellent rumor debunking Web site Snopes.com put it, the draft "bills were introduced not by legislators genuinely seeking to reinstate the draft, but by Democrats seeking to make an anti-war statement."

That even the sponsors did not really want a draft became indisputable on Oct. 5 when the draft bill, HR 163, was called up for a vote on the floor of the House, and was crushed by a vote of 402-2 - with most of its sponsors refusing to vote for it.

. . . . .

Rather than giving so much space to lies of e-mail hoaxsters, the Denver papers and CBS should have contacted the anti-draft, anti-war organization Alliance for Security. The group has written a report, "Debunking the Myths: Getting the Draft Story Straight," which refutes the e-mail claims that a draft was coming next spring because of HR 163.

And when doing stories about young people who are worried about being forced into government service, the Denver and national media should have pointed out that John Kerry is the only candidate who has proposed such coercion. As detailed in Kerry's proposal "100 Days to Change America," Kerry's "plan will require mandatory national service for high school kids . . . As president, John Kerry will ensure that every high school student in America does community service as a requirement for graduation." The plan appeared on Kerry's Web site at www.johnkerry. com/issues/100days/. Like many other pages on Kerry's Web site, this one has disappeared without explanation, but you can still find the page by entering the original URL into the "search" box at www.archive.org.

You know, I think I understand now how Kerry plans to increase the military by 40,000. How can you guarantee a number like that if not through a draft?

Oddly the search feature times out on www.archive.org, and the page in question doesn't appear to exist at the mirror site http://archive.bibalex.org. Surely there's nothing fishy going on here...

UPDATE: Googling the phrase '100 Days to Change America' and 'John Kerry' one finds a link to a press release linked to the plan that had appeared on Kerry's site. The page is no longer on the Kerry server, but Google has (for the time being at least) a cached copy:

Make national service a way of life by requiring mandatory service for high school kids and giving Americans the chance to earn four years of college tuition in exchange for two years of service.

I also see that numerous sites had written vociferously on this issue when it first arose, many taking it to extremes (Kerry Slavery?).

But the point that can't be missed is that Kerry is essentially a socialist who wants to increase the federal government, and that necessarily puts limits on freedom by requiring service to the federal government.

If we want to look at the extreme though the unexplored corollary I think would be the creation of a heretofore non-existent class divide. Kerry's plan would require service in exchange for a high school diploma, and would reward those who comply with money for college. Ultimately such a plan threatens to create a class of 'educated patriots' and uneducated second class citizens.

Frightening stuff.