The draft scare.

Suddenly, a lot of people thought the Bush Administration had a secret plan to reinstate the draft.

What prompted all this was a Hearst wire service article noting that the Selective Service was making plans for a “mock” draft exercise that would use computerized models to determine how, if necessary, the government would get some 100,000 young adults to report to their local draft boards.

The mock computer exercise, last carried out in 1998, is strictly routine, Selective Service officials said, and it will not actually be run until 2009 — if at all. The exercise has been scheduled several times in the last few years, only to be scuttled each time because of budget and staffing problems, and Mr. Flahavan said he would not be surprised if it was canceled this time around, too.

No matter. With President Bush saying that he wants to increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps, the military strained near the breaking point and the secretary of veterans affairs suggesting publicly this week that a reconstituted draft could “benefit” the country, even the notion of a mock exercise seemed to strike a nerve.

Supposedly, the blogs went wild. I didn't notice that and am not seeing it on Memeorandum (which is my favorite way to see at a glance what's going on in blogdom).

The subject of the draft came up on the "Week in Review" radio show I did yesterday with Ed Garvey. You can listen to that if you want to hear somebody -- Ed -- state the typical alarmist position and me respond that the only people who support a draft are those who are anti-military. [ADDED: This part begins at 14:31.]