Osama bin Laden – if he is alive – and, in any event, his strategists must be encouraged by the fact that Senator Kerry is starting to bellyache about the possibility of a draft. Yesterday, at Florida, the senator not only claimed that President Bush would, if re-elected, bring back the draft, but he vowed he wouldn’t draft Americans for the war and started maundering on about how in the past the draft was supposedly unfair. He did just about everything except burn a draft card, which is ironical given that he has based his political career on the fact that he served in the military.

What in Sam Hill could Mr. Kerry be thinking given that America is in a desperate struggle to convince an implacable foe that we are in this war for the long haul? The thing to say – it’s certainly our view – is that if a draft would help, we’d be thrilled to see it resumed. But if President Bush is thinking about bringing back conscription, he doesn’t seem to have told Secretary Rumsfeld. The Pentagon chief gets asked about the draft just about every time he goes out, and he couldn’t have been more emphatic that he wants no part of the idea. Last month he gave an interview to WGN in Chicago, where he said he does not anticipate difficulties getting enlistments under our volunteer system. He reported that the military is currently above its targets in most cases and can adjust incentives where needed. “We don’t need to go back to a draft,” he said, calling it a “terrible idea.”

The line Mr. Kerry has opened up couldn’t be more irresponsible in the signal it sends to the enemy, which, in the global war it is levying against America, is pursuing a central strategy of seeking to sap the American will. President Bush marked the point yesterday from the stump.

This is why, at every turn, Mr. Rumsfeld reminds the world that the force we need to raise to fight this war is less than a percent of total population and easily met. Mr. Kerry’s carping about a draft is the kind of thing that has confronted every wartime American president, going back to before Lincoln. It’s just not the kind of thing one normally associates with individuals who want to be commander in chief.