From the Ex-Parrot department.

Jacob Weisberg gives it a poke and nothing moves...

George W. Bush's plan to remake the Social Security system is kaput. This is not a value judgment. It's a statement of political fact.

The road to that defeat is still strewn with hazards for Democrats, though...

...if Bush is shrewd enough to euthanize carve-out accounts while shifting to make solvency his goal, he will leave his Democratic opponents in a quandary. A package of innocuous tax increases and benefit cuts could extend the life of the trust fund out to 75 years in a fairly painless way. Substantively, it would be hard for even the most partisan Democrats to oppose this kind of compromise...

Unless, of course, they had a more progressive, more productive alternative to vote for.

Once again, why shouldn't there be a plan that removes the income cap for FICA, makes no benefit cuts and has a Democrat's name on it?

We've beat back the radical destructionist's worst ideas for Social Security . Isn't it near time to unveil our best, rather than settling for their merely miserable?