Demagogues

Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post gets it:

Just as Republicans overplayed their hand with the Clinton impeachment and George Bush overplayed his hand after the 2004 election, the Democrats are about to overplay theirs.

Social Security is a case in point. By staying unified, Democrats have pushed back an attempt to partially privatize a government social program that, more than any other, defines what they are about. They also got the president to agree to increase the amount of income subject to the payroll tax as well as a progressive scheme for slowing the growth in future benefits.

You might think, therefore, that this would be the ideal time for a minority party to take the lead with its own plan to ensure solvency of this popular program, based on those and other progressive principles. Guess again. The Washington Democrats have decided, instead, to press their advantage by demanding that the president agree to trade all consideration of private accounts, as well as his income tax cuts, plus one Supreme Court justice to be named later, before they will even pull up to the negotiating table. Apparently, they'd rather have an issue to demagogue than actually rescue a vital program.