Another Ridiculous Democratic Slander

It just gets crazier. Have you heard the latest excuse Democrats are offering for their refusal to treat the Social Security issue as a matter of sufficient urgency that it ought to be addressed? Well, it’s no excuse at all. As is so often the case with these people, it’s an attack designed to divert attention away from their misconduct. And almost laughably, they are accusing President Bush of doing the very thing they are doing and that he is most certainly not doing: creating a diversion.

That is, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi say that President Bush is using the Social Security issue “to distract attention from more pressing national problems.” Pelosi said, “I think it is a diversionary tactic on the part of the administration.” Officials are attempting to divert attention “away from other areas where they’re not having success.”

Three quick points:

1) President Bush has been talking about this issue since the 2000 campaign. If anything, he’s late in getting around to it, though it’s understandable given 9/11 and the Democrat obstruction on his tax plan and judicial nominations, to name a few. But he has always indicated his determination to tackle this issue, so no one can reasonably, or in good faith claim that he is manufacturing this issue for any reason other than that it is part of his legitimate long-standing policy agenda.

2) What possible motive would he have to divert attention from any other issues? He’s not running for anything right now. We’ve just overseen an historically successful election in Iraq. Besides, nothing would be gained from such a diversion anyway. I suppose since Democrats are always in poll-mode, they assume everyone else is too and that the public could even relate to this mindset. But frankly, they’re so off the mark here as to be on another planet.

3) It really is true that they are making these charges to divert attention from their refusal to deal with this issue. And they refuse to deal with it because they don’t want to lose it as a demagogic, populistic tool. And let’s not even get into their repeated claims that the president is pushing partial privatization as a vehicle to enrich his friends on Wall Street. Only lunatic types from Democratic Underground would believe such fantastic yarns. I appreciate the column and blog fodder, but at some point we all have a limit to the amount of b.s. we can digest.