An Army of None...

For all their supposed hatred of Hollywood and the Left, Republicans seem to watch more TV than I do. They especially like to cozy up in front of the tube to watch Bill Maher... and this is what has some of them rattled this time.

Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., caught a clip of Maher reacting to the fact that the Army missed its April recruiting goal by 42%. Maher said, "More people joined the Michael Jackson fan club. We've done picked all the low-lying Lynndie England fruit, and now we need warm bodies."

Bachus said the remark bordered on treason and that, while Maher shouldn't be prosecuted, he should be taken off of the air.

Maher may have painted with too broad a brush (though I don't see how it could be construed as treason), but his highlighting the struggles the military is now having should be in the spotlight.

The military is getting desperate for new recruits, and they should put blame for this where it rightfully belongs: the politicians, and more specifically, the architects of the Iraq war. Whether or not you believe they outright lied or not, the Bush administration showed horrible judgement in the lead up to the war, relying on scant evidence and much hearsay to make their case to invade Iraq. And, to be fair, public opinion suggested there are plenty of "low-lying" voters out there who are easily convinced.

It's no wonder that young men and women are not enlisting, and it has little to do with left/right ideology. If you can't trust your leader to have good judgement, whatever his/her pary, why would you put your life in their hands? This is especially true when the current reasons for the war have been clouded in Wilsonian ideology that didn't work the first time around.

Maher isn't the culprit here... it's a political machine that was all to eager to use the military without careful planning. If Maher can be chastised for comparing our enlisted men and women to "low-lying fruit", the Bush adminstration should be held accountable for treating them like nothing more.