Condi's War

Asked about Condi as a potential president, she said: "Dr. Rice, who I think would be a really good candidate, is not interested. Probably because she is single, her parents are no longer living; she's an only child. You need a very supportive family and supportive friends to have this job."

No, it wasn't Barbara Boxer who suggested that being a single woman is a disqualification for being president. It was Laura Bush.

And no one screamed bloody murder. No one suggested it was a setback for feminism, an attack on single woman, an argument that being married and having children are qualifications for making good public policy.

So why the hullabaloo about Barbara Boxer's comments?

Simple.

Conservatives need someone to blame. Their policy is bankrupt. Their war has failed. They have no answers. So why not beat up on Barbara Boxer? Better that than looking in the mirror. Easier to create an issue where you can be right than to face the one where you're wrong.

There was, in fact, a legitimate issue raised by the Boxer-Rice exchange, and it has nothing to do with single women making policy. It was the issue Boxer was trying to raise, however inartfully. It is the question of who is paying the price for this war, and what impact that has on our democracy and our decision-making.

What would be happening in America right now if we were relying on a draft to generate the soldiers necessary to fight this war?

The short answer is that all hell would be breaking loose. There would be demonstrations on campuses, marches on Washington, new forms of Internet-based activism I can't even imagine because no one has dreamed them up yet. There would be only one topic of conversation — and it wouldn't have anything to do with Barbara Boxer.

The reason most of us are going about our lives as if there is no war is that the war doesn't touch us, and we won't let it.

We keep ourselves immune. We pay our own kids' college tuition. We depend on the military to defend us, but we don't rely on its benefits to open the door to the American dream. We are not military families. We may oppose the war, but our lives, and our children's, don't depend on the efficacy of our opposition.

The military, I am reminded every time I make this argument, doesn't want a draft. They want people who choose to serve, not those who are chosen by others. The want volunteers, not conscripts.

Fair enough. But in a shrunken, all volunteer military, the danger is that too few pay too much, and it is too easy for the people who send them there to avoid paying any political price for that.

The checks and balances of democracy do not work when the military is not representative of the powerful as well as the powerless.

Maybe military families don't want Barbara Boxer to speak for them.

But who is?

As I write this, there has been another botched execution in Iraq, another demonstration of a government that cannot enforce its punishments with a modicum of dignity. You actually hear otherwise intelligent people these days yearning for the rule of Saddam Hussein. How have we got to this point?

The country overwhelmingly opposes the war, but the passion that would be there if our children, all our children, were vulnerable to its cost is missing. And without that passion, the war will drag on.

The problem with Condi Rice is not her marital status, but her policies. The problem with the rest of us is that, untouched by their cost, we don't do enough to stop them.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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