Seem like we’ve finally gotten used to shouting down ex-Bush Administration officials who are busy touring the country and popping up on talk shows to justify the very positions and policies that got the GOP’s ass thrown out of power. Most recently, everybody’s been trying to defend their position on torture and waterboarding, as Condi Rice was doing in front of a group of 10 year-olds at a speech she gave last week.

But now, one of the remnants of the Bush 41 era has popped into the news with a simple statement he made at a speech given in another school. James Baker, who was Secretary of State during the first Gulf War go-around with Saddam and Company, was asked what he thought was the best way to continue attracting young people into government service - or more specifically, how to keep up the military in the recent wake of several costly and disastrous wars. His answer was simple: reinstate the military draft.

If you’re old enough to remember, or if you’re a student of recent history, you may recall when America last had a military draft - during the Vietnam War. And you may also have seen old news footage or still photographs of the protests that policy fostered - riots, sit-ins, draft card burning, college takeovers, etc. Bottom line: when America last had a military draft, we also had a whole never ending shitstorm of unhappiness to go along with it. So why on earth would we ever even consider walking down that road again?

For years now, Democratic congressman Charlie Rangel has been beating his drum about reinstating the draft - or as it is more properly known, the “Selective Service”. Meaning the government does the Selecting, and 18 to 25 year-old males do the Service. Up until now, his has been a lone voice - mostly because suggesting a reinstatement of the draft drew an uncomfortable parallel between our present predicaments in Iraq and Afghanistan and the seven-year nightmare of Vietnam in the sixties and early seventies. But now Former Secretary Baker seems to be taking the same position, and for the same general reasons as Rangel.

These two guys are universes apart philosphically, ideologically, and politically. But they share a common point of view on war - if you, either as a simple citizen or as an elected official, knew that your kid might suddenly have to drop everything, dress up in a camo suit, and go get shot at in some idiotic war started by some despotic idiot President over some dreamed up fantasy, then you might think twice before going ahead and giving the green light to such a policy.

As long as wars are owned by somebody else, and fought using somebody else’s children as cannon fodder, wars are easier to approve. There’s not as much personal investment in the process or in the outcome with some luckless volunteers carrying all the weight. But when you know that it might be your kids drafted into defusing those roadside bombs and eating those rocket-propelled grenades, it could be a whole lot harder to just give blanket approval to whatever some nutjob in the White House decides is a good idea. Which is exactly what we ended up doing after 9/11.