Keith Olbermann strove mightily last night to make something significant out of an answer John McCain gave at a town hall meeting yesterday in which a lady made a lengthy plea to do something about the deplorable state of the Veterans' Administration. She concluded her petition by saying, almost inaudibly, that she doesn't see how we'll be able to attract enough young people to military service to get bin Laden unless we reinstate the draft. McCain responded to the woman that he didn't disagree with anything she said and then proceeded to give an equally long response to her complaints about the VA. In other words, he was clearly affirming her critique of the VA, not her coda about the draft, which he appears not to have even heard.
Nevertheless, Olbermann declared that McCain obviously plans to reinstitute the draft, and the MSNBC talk host wanted to be sure every young person and parent knew this so that they'd punish McCain on election day.
Well, here's the video of the woman's question and McCain's response. You decide whether you think McCain is saying he intends to resurrect the draft:
It's just bizarre that Olbermann would see this as anything more than something which might merit requesting a clarification. To assert in confident tones that he has espied in McCain's words an intention to reinstate the draft is absurd. It strikes me as an interpretation born of desperation to find some way to reverse McCain's rise in the polls. It also strikes me as fundamentally dishonest, especially in light of McCain's previous insistence that he has no intention of calling for a draft short of world war III.
HT: Hot Air
RLC