George Clooney’s new movie, The Ides of March , about the shady backroom dealing of a presidential campaign, has been getting mixed reviews for its strong acting but weak plot, bad script, and " basic misunderstanding of politics. " But one scene is worth extracting, where Ryan Gosling, playing the candidate’s campaign manager, lays out a case for mandatory national service: On one level, this is astonishingly blinkered, substituting a cheap cynicism for real analysis. "Everyone over the age of 18 are past the eligibility age and will be for it. Why not?" As noted earlier here , age doesn’t seem to be stopping the Tea Party from rabidly opposing even AmeriCorps—a far more modest program. However, the idea of national service, mandatory or not, has still been coming up amongst American thought leaders across the media spectrum. A recent spate of items from across the media have been promoting the idea of national service. Tom Brokaw devotes a substantial portio