Social Security Privatization Arouses Fright in Senate Republicans

Josh Marshall links to this inspiring excerpt from the Wall Street Journal:

Senate Republicans signaled their wariness yesterday in a private retreat on the year's legislative agenda with White House adviser Karl Rove. An attendee said the senators gave Mr. Rove "a subtle but clearly identifiable message that the GOP [Grand Old Party] would go along...but they were scared to death." The senators indicated that the president "had to step up his activity" to sell his initiative to Americans, which Mr. Rove said Mr. Bush would do. But the attendee said senators also warned the Social Security proposal "needed to be bipartisan or else no go."

Still, some Republicans are resigned to uniting behind the president, given his determination. "The president is going to go ahead," said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a Republican leadership lieutenant. "He cannot afford to fail. It would have repercussions for the rest of his program, including foreign policy. We can't hand the president a defeat on his major domestic initiative at a time of war."

It really is quite note-worthy that the Senate Republicans are "scared to death" to go along with the Social Security privitization plan. Well join the club. The rest of America is a little spooked too. Especially AARP. They are launching a massive advertising campaign against it.

And then there's the last sentence of the WSJ excerpt worded so eloquently by Tom Cole or Oklahoma. "We can't hand the president a defeat on his major domestic initiative at a time of war."

Oh yes we can! This has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with terrorism, except maybe that the terrorists would love to see us sink closer and closer to bankruptcy. And that is precisely where Bush's social security plan would send us.