Inside the Beltway

License to drink

As was debated during the Vietnam War, a portion of the American public today is arguing that if a member of the U.S. military is old enough to die fighting for his or her country, then they ought to be mature enough to enjoy a beer.

The president emeritus of Middlebury College in Vermont, John M. McCardell Jr., is about to start a nationwide campaign in support of legislation to lower state minimum drinking age laws to 18. But there’s a catch: Young adults would first have to pass an alcohol education course before bellying up to the bar.

“Choose Responsibility” is the newly incorporated organization that Mr. McCardell and his team of college students are forming to push for the change, or so we read in the Middlebury Campus newspaper. Rather than simply lowering the national legal drinking age from 21 to 18, the paper reports, the organization advocates that states “launch alcohol education programs to teach young adults about responsible purchase, possession and consumption.”

“Upon successful completion of a course, a participant could receive a license to consume and purchase alcohol at the age of 18. The license would be legal in the state in which the 18-year-old is a resident” or attends college.

Mr. McCardell is a Maryland native who graduated from Washington and Lee University in Virginia. He did his graduate work at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and received his doctorate at Harvard.

Switching gears

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, thought twice after saying the United States has lost the war in Iraq. In an interview this week with WERS-FM radio in Boston, Mr. Schumer was asked whether the war in Iraq was winnable.

“No,” he replied.

After hesitating, the senator added: “Well, I don’t think it’s winnable. I think it needs a dramatic change in strategy. Certainly the way they’re pursuing it it’s not winnable. The bottom line is no one bargained for what we’re doing now, which is policing a civil war.”

Mr. Schumer argued that the U.S. military needs to switch its mission from policing a civil war to what the original intent “was supposed to be — counterterrorism. That would take maybe 30,000 or 40,000 troops — not in harm’s way, but in camps,” he explained.

“And if al Qaeda set up base, they could go in there and wipe out those bases. But that’s it. The rest of the troops should come home.”

America’s bodyguards

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