OK, the media on all sides of the political/corporate spectrum agree that the armed forces have a serious recruitment problem. What to do about it? The Washington Post reports the latest maneuver: a database of high school and college students, which will enable the military to target the likeliest candidates and upset privacy advocates at the same time.
But the MSM are largely ignoring another even more obvious angle, which has been simmering for weeks in the blogosphere: appeal directly to the war's supporters to help make up the shortfall. Among the most persistent voices, DailyKos' Markos Moulitsas ZĂşniga, himself a veteran, has been lambasting "These War Preachers ... War Politicians, War Pundits, and 101st Fighting Keyboarders [who] like to talk a tough game, but they don't have the balls to tell their readers, viewers, and supporters to head down to their local recruitment office." Steve Gilliard at the News Blog says, "What I want people to do is be honest. If you will not serve in Iraq, and no one you know will serve, stop expecting someone else to do what you will not."
Now the bloggers' effort to recruit the hawks has a name: Operation Yellow Elephant. OK, so there's more than a little tongue in the cheek here, and large doses of snark (as any reader of Jesus' General can attest), but the basic point is a valid one. Crooks and Liars tried to help the campaign by purchasing a full-page ad in the program for the upcoming national convention of the Young Republicans, but it was rejected as "too negative." It reads something like a WWII poster:
Our nation is at War!
We are in a desperate struggle for all we believe in.
Our military is suffering a manpower crisis.
Why are you here when your country needs you in Iraq?
Talk is cheap. American needs more from you.
College, family, and careers can wait.
Heed your nation's call and enlist in the infantry today.
Thus far, there has been no news coverage of the Elephant campaign or the ad's rejection. But there is a glimmer. At the White House press briefing after the latest dismal recruitment were announced, one reporter did ask "[I]s there any member of the Bush clan who is in the military service now, that you know of?" Press secretary Scott McClellan replied, "I'd have to go check."
We're waiting.