Behind US recruitment woes, Joe’s risky ‘alternative’ strategy and other commentary

Navy vet: Behind US Recruitment Woes

“ ‘Leave no one behind’ has been the American warrior’s ethos” — or was “until Joe Biden became commander-in-chief,” rails Hung Cao at The Spectator. Last year, “the Army missed its recruitment goals,” and the Navy barely met its own. With Biden’s “mistakes,” such as in Afghanistan, there’s “no wonder” why. When the remains of 11 US servicemen killed there by a suicide bomber were “paraded off a C-17,” he was “seen checking his watch.” His administration is “obsessed” with diversity, equity and inclusion, and the Pentagon ranks climate change and right-wing extremism among its top issues. Young Americans don’t join to “obsess over gender, sexual orientation and skin color”; that’s “for weird humanities professors.” To restore recruitment, “military leaders” must control “the creep of naked politics into a once apolitical institution.”

Libertarian: The Pro-Life Overreach

“Polls find some degree of buyers’ remorse in states that restricted abortion after Dobbs,” observes Reason’s J.D. Tuccille. Bills restricting or banning abortions just failed in Nebraska and South Carolina, both “solidly red states.” This suggests that “many Americans who were unhappy with the strong protections for reproductive rights embodied in the Roe v. Wade decision overturned by Dobbs weren’t necessarily looking for total prohibition.” Indeed, “in states where abortion is now prohibited the share of people saying abortions should be easier to obtain rose from 31 percent in 2019 to 43 percent this year.” And a majority of “no major political grouping in the United States” favors a “total ban.” “With abortion and so many other matters, prohibitionists are often their own worst enemies.”

From the right: Anatomy of a Smear

“After Matthew Kacsmaryk suspended approval” of mifepristone, the Washington Post accused the federal judge of removing his name from “an article he had allegedly drafted” on religious freedom prior to his nomination, notes the Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium. But “almost every part of the story appears to have been misleading.” First, Kacsmaryk “supervised the attorneys drafting” the article, “stepping back” when “his nomination was imminent.” Indeed, “when someone is about to be nominated, the Justice Department tells that person to shut up.” And the other attorneys say “they wrote the first draft themselves.” Also, “if nominees had to disclose ghostwritten or ghostedited material, the Senate questionnaire would be nearly impossible to fill out” — “such a standard would pose problems for liberals and conservatives alike.”

Eye on ’24: Joe’s Risky ‘Alternative’ Strategy

President Biden plainly plans to run as the only alternative to “MAGA extremists,” worries Doug Schoen at The Hill. It might work, but the GOP “will make every effort to turn this into an election about high inflation, the teetering economy and the border crisis,” plus doubts “on Biden’s ability to endure the rigors of another four years in office.” So “Democrats also need to offer voters an actual alternative” that addresses “voters’ negative feelings about the economy.” The anti-MAGA stuff doesn’t move black or Hispanic voters, “groups that are absolutely crucial to the Democratic coalition.” Fact is, “given the alternative, the Democratic Party can’t leave anything to chance in 2024.”

Media watch: Redefining ‘Insurrection’

The Associated Press just changed its definition of an insurrection at a capitol building because “words still matter — but only when convenient to the left,” huffs Libby Emmons at Human Events. On the events of Jan. 6, the AP “determined that mob, riot, or insurrection were the appropriate terms,” as an insurrection is “an act or instance of revolting against civil authorities or an established government.” But it wasn’t an AP insurrection “when rioters stormed the state capitol” this month to stop the Montana House from censuring legislator and trans activist Zooey Zephyr, or when “three state representatives led an angry mob to disrupt the workings of the Tennessee House.” Clearly, the AP has one definition “when Democrats are undertaking the aggression, but an entirely different standard applies when it’s the GOP staging the protest.”

Compiled by The Post Editorial Board