Dick says: Fight, Jane, Fight

National Review, Oct 5, 1992

IN THE AFTERGLOW of the Gulf War victory, feminists were quick to exploit the media's exaggerated praise of women soldiers in order to attack the ban on women in direct combat roles. In last year's congressional hearings, Defense Department witnesses repeatedly stated that DoD had no opinion on whether women should fly combat missions-they awaited guidance from Congress. By refusing this chance to endorse the ban, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney became a silent ally of the campaign to send women into combat that was launched by Representative Patricia Schroeder, backed by the feminist-occupied media, and endorsed by Governor Clinton's "New Covenant" Democrats.

Despite DoD's retreat before this Operation Petticoat, some members of Congress had second thoughts; they bought time and ducked political fallout by establishing a Presidential Commission to study the issue. The 15-member Commission, due to report its findings two weeks after the election, was largely hand-picked by Mr. Cheney. Yet it seems likely to recommend placing women in at least some direct combat positions. That is the politically correct view in Mr. Cheney's Defense Department, and, as David Horowitz relates in our cover story, service members who express contrary opinions do so at their professional peril.

The tragedy is that President Bush, who is thought to be privately skeptical of U.S. Amazons, will be hard pressed to reject the advice of his own blue-ribbon panel. And if he sends its recommendations to Congress (which he must do by December 15) with his backing, the liberals will have gained political cover for an extreme feminist experiment with almost no popular support that is likely to damage the effectiveness of the armed forces. Unless Dick Cheney executes a speedy retreat to common sense, he will have helped deliver women into combat for Pat Schroeder and Bill Clinton. That is not something conservatives will have forgotten by 1996.

  Clinton and the Draft
He has a little shadow that
 Goes in and out with him;
It tags along across a street,
   And, as the sun grows dim,
His shadow dimly hangs around,
 Retreating only when
A thundercloud appears above,
  Then reappears again.
W. H.  VON  DREELE