Kinky

Perhaps an imaginary mandate isn’t quite the political chain mail King George had assumed, because there appear to be kinks in the armor as his grand plans for Social Security reform seem to be derailing (I note with a dose of reserved optimism). As more Republicans express doubt about the claims of a crisis, Acme, Inc. is now resorting to misquoting Dems to bolster their argument. And not just any Dems:

With their push to restructure Social Security off to a rocky start, Bush administration officials have begun citing two Democrats -- former President Bill Clinton and the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- to bolster their claims that the retirement system is in crisis.

[…]

In public speeches recently, N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, and White House budget director Joshua B. Bolten, both cited the same passage of a 1998 Clinton speech at Georgetown University.

"This fiscal crisis in Social Security affects every generation," Clinton said in the speech.

But neither Mankiw nor Bolten cited another passage from the same address: "Before we spend a penny on new programs or tax cuts, we should save Social Security first. I think it should be the driving principle . . . Do not have a tax cut. Do not have a spending program that deals with that surplus. Save Social Security first."

I imagine the conventional wisdom on this one will be that it’s little more than an attempt to craft the appearance of bipartisan support for the administration’s ridiculous reform proposals. But it also has a whiff of desperation. I’d really like to think that at least the most radical of the reform ideas are not long for this world.

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On a tangential note…

It’s hardly shocking anymore when anyone even remotely associated with the administration deliberately miscontextualizes a statement from anyone on either side of the aisle on any policy issue. What is a little bit shocking is that they chose to misquote Clinton, whose opinions are of no value whatsoever in garnering support from Bush supporters.

Somewhere in the far reaches of my consciousness, I wonder whether choosing Clinton specifically wasn’t at least in part a means of sending out feelers to see just how committed they are to an ’08 run for Hillary. It will be interesting to see how vociferously Clinton defends his own statements, or whether he even sells himself out as further illustration of the bipartisanship that Hillary seems ever more keen on demonstrating. Am I fishing? Well, let’s see how Bill responds to having his words twisted in a way that supports a program he clearly made laudable efforts to save during his own tenure at 1600.