What Is Missing at CPAC?

Mike Stark at HuffPo

Everyone is here... Michelle Malkin. Ann Coulter. Newt Gingrich. Duncan Hunter. Mitt Romney. Jeff Gannon. Sam Brownback. Melanie Morgan. John O'Neill... Oh so many heroes of the right...

And let me tell you - they've really turned out impressive support. At a time when the conservative agenda polls in the thirties, one gets the impression that they are all here.

Something else these folks have done well is turn out the new generation of wingnuts. The average age of the attendee here has got to be below 30 - there are literally thousands of College Republicans moving about in Brownian style from exhibit to exhibit, conference to conference, speaker to speaker, ballroom to ballroom.

Exhibit hall is stuffed to the gills. Freedom Alliance. Blogger's row. Heritage Foundation. American Spectator. Clare Booth Luce Foundation... the Koch group... Regent University. Several candidates have booths. Oddly enough, even the ACLU has a booth (even if they are placed in the back corner furthest from Exhibit Hall's entrance).

Oh... but there's one notable - striking, even - absence.

There are no military recruiters here. No United States Marine Corps. No Army, no Navy, no Air Force or National Guard - hell, not even the Coast Guard is here. Thousands and thousands of College Republicans, but not a single recruiter in sight...

Why?

Well, I have a theory or two (Michelle Malkin doesn't agree with me, but more on that later).

Let's try this: CPAC didn't want to be embarrassed when pictures were released that showed recruiters standing around looking lonely. Similarly, recruiters know it's a better investment of their time to troll "the other malls" rather than to recruit these nice white college boys.

I think the recruiters have been told to pretty much stay away from the spawn of the ruling elite, or else they just don't bother to waste their time. The "nice white college boys" have "other priorities", such as learning how to rule and steal from the masses, not going off to this fraudulent war, however noble they tell others it is. There's plenty of peasants to bullshit into doing that. They probably wouldn't be worth a shit as soldiers anyway.

What the young Repuglicans don't realize is that they're missing a bet by not flocking to join up and go serve in their great cause in Iraq - what better bona fides for political success in later life could there possibly be than having two or three prosthetic limbs from an IED? Besides showing them as heroes who served, it would give them something in common with their subjects fellow citizens.

Oh, but why would they want or need that? They're getting the country handed to them on a platter by their parents anyway. Besides, they wouldn't want to miss any keggers.