More on the Bush (hswib) strategy

You can afford to be a one-trick pony as long as the trick keeps working.

"The expected Social Security shortfall has been a perennial domestic concern in much the same way that Hussein's intransigence with arms inspectors was a perennial foreign-policy concern: From the White House to Congress to think tanks, policy makers worried about it, but presidents (including Bush) felt no immediate need to deal with it.

Then Bush decided to focus on it, and suddenly a long-term concern became intense and immediate.

Much as the Iraq war was preceded by speeches designed to show Hussein in the most threatening light, the Bush economic summit seemed designed to dominate a slow news week with the idea that failing to deal with Social Security now will hurt the national economy."

Oh, and the fact that we have a deficit problem brought on by relaxed taxation of the rich that is beginning to show up in the falling dollar is just not that important.