Dishonest Editorial

Here’s an example of propaganda disguised as an editorial in the Washington Post today (Dishonest Debate below). However, it is so ineptly written, and filled with contradictions within itself, that it’s hard to believe the editorial board even thought it might be believed. It ends up being a failed deceit. Just as those it seeks to champion are failures.

And thanks to Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo for calling our attention to it. [ Much of this is demonstrated in George Orwell’s Politics & the English Language, posted at the Guerrilla Campaign http://tmars.iwarp.com/guerrilla_campaign/politics_and_the_English_language.htm

Read this:
The trustees' report, according to Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), "confirms that the so-called Social Security crisis exists in only one place: the minds of Republicans." The senator's desire to score political points is understandable. His willingness to do so by implying that Social Security is healthy is not.

In Mr. Reid’s statement that the WaPo quotes above, he states that there is no crisis, NOT that SocSec was healthy. Didn’t even imply it.

Democrats defend this opportunism by saying the president is worse. President Bush, they complain, is talking up an alleged Social Security "crisis" in order to ram through an unrelated proposal to create personal accounts. But, in addressing Social Security, Mr. Bush is taking on an issue that the Clinton administration also regarded as important; he is not inventing a problem. He can be faulted for not specifying the benefit cuts or tax hikes he favors to restore solvency, but at least he acknowledges some will be needed.

The same twisting of their own sentences here create a far different picture of what they state are the facts: 1.) Clinton considered it important; 2.) the president bush is claiming a crisis. And he has already said that any tax hikes are “off the table”

But it's hard to take seriously the Democrats who say that Mr. Bush should switch focus from Social Security to the much bigger problem of Medicare: If they aren't willing to play a constructive role on the supposedly "minor" challenge of Social Security, why should anyone believe that they would behave constructively if the administration wanted to fix Medicare? [emphasis mine]

The Washington Post knows that bush does not want any increase in revenue to adjust SocSec funding. The paper also knows that the only “proposal” presented by bush are his “private accounts”, which he insists be carved out of revenue. The administration has already admitted that the “private accounts” will not do anything to address “solvency for Social Security”. So for the WaPo to say the the president bush is being in any way constructive towards SocSec, is false. In the paper’s own pages they have already printed those facts. So, to be blunt, the Post is doing some scamming and shilling. The Democrats, long ago, said to bush “take the private accounts off the table, and we’ll come to the table”. The president bush has refused.

Maybe the Post might wish to scold the bush into fixing something, anything, if they feel the need to do some scolding. The agenda of the administration and it’s minions is to destroy Social Security, and Medicare, not fix them, because they don’t care what happens to the “ordinary people”, as long as they can slip more money to their “base”. They’ve said so themselves. So, why should anyone believe the administration wanted to fix Social Security? This editorial doesn’t explain.

If the Washington Post editorial page wishes to shill for the administration, and its failures, that’s fine. It has the right. But c’mon, be honest about it. The conclusion I draw from this is that the Post doesn’t have enough courage to be honest in the face of America’s opposition. And neither does the bush administration. They do like to strut around like ballsy men, though, don’t they?

Just so.

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Dishonest Debate
Friday, March 25, 2005; Page A18
washingtonpost.com
Editorial
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64553-2005Mar24.html

ONE CAN DEBATE the merits of creating personal accounts in Social Security but not the case for fixing the program's solvency problems. Over the next 75 years, as the Social Security trustees reported on Wednesday, the program has a projected deficit of $4 trillion; the longer the nation waits to address this problem, the nastier the tax hikes or benefit reductions that will result. But that's not the impression conveyed by some Democratic leaders. The trustees' report, according to Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), "confirms that the so-called Social Security crisis exists in only one place: the minds of Republicans." The senator's desire to score political points is understandable. His willingness to do so by implying that Social Security is healthy is not.

Democrats defend this opportunism by saying the president is worse. President Bush, they complain, is talking up an alleged Social Security "crisis" in order to ram through an unrelated proposal to create personal accounts. But, in addressing Social Security, Mr. Bush is taking on an issue that the Clinton administration also regarded as important; he is not inventing a problem. He can be faulted for not specifying the benefit cuts or tax hikes he favors to restore solvency, but at least he acknowledges some will be needed. In that context, personal accounts are not irrelevant; they involve risks, but they are potentially a way of cushioning the necessary benefit cuts in the traditional Social Security system.

Democrats are right that the Bush tax cuts have created a much bigger crisis: Their impact on the deficit over the next 75 years, as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office, is about three times greater than the Social Security shortfall projected by the trustees. It is also true that Medicare poses more of a problem than Social Security. Mr. Bush dodges that larger problem, pretending that he put Medicare on the road to reform when, in fact, he and Congress mostly added to its fiscal problems by creating a new entitlement for drug reimbursements. But it's hard to take seriously the Democrats who say that Mr. Bush should switch focus from Social Security to the much bigger problem of Medicare: If they aren't willing to play a constructive role on the supposedly "minor" challenge of Social Security, why should anyone believe that they would behave constructively if the administration wanted to fix Medicare?

The nation faces a severe economic threat from the aging of its population combined with escalating health costs. The sooner it begins to grapple with this problem, the less painful the solution will be. For Mr. Bush, that would mean acknowledging the need for more revenue. For the Democrats, it would require for a smidgeon of honesty about Social Security's state.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

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