OxBlog

Saturday, March 22, 2003

# Posted 8:48 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

RANGEL WRANGLED? Reader GB thinks it was unfair for OxBlog to call Charlie Rangel (D-NY) a hypocrite. As GB points out, Rangel made clear that his initial support for reinstating the draft was a tactic designed to prevent the US from going to war.

As far as I'm concerned, that doesn't change a thing. Rangel opposes having a volunteer army on the grounds that it lets rich white congressmen send poor black citizens off to die for their country. Yet Rangel was one of just eleven congressmen who voted against a resolution expressing support for the troops but not for the war.

Why, pray tell, won't Congressman Rangel express his support for the selfsame troops whose selfless sacrifice he described as a justification for reinstating the draft? Answer: hypocrisy.

NB: Rangel is actually wrong about black soldiers dying for a white government. While there are more minorities in the army than in society as a whole, they tend to enlist in non-combat units.
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