The Washington Post reports that the senate Finance Committe holding hearings on President Bush's plan to dismantle Social Security reveals the Dems are united and the Republicans are badly divided.
One GOP witness repeatedly disparaged the White House's approach to Social Security changes, bolstering Democratic contentions that it would lead to politically untenable benefit cuts. Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.) questioned the wisdom of adding trillions of dollars in federal debt in the coming decades to finance the president's plan. And Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) seemed to signal intractable opposition to converting part of the defined Social Security benefit to variable returns from stock and bond investments.
I'd give credit to the Dems for doing a good job but with one caveat: the Republicans have been idiotically bad on this and so many other issues that simply standing still has allowed the Dems et al to look like political geniuses. When the other guy is shooting himself in the foot, all you have to do is avoid the ricochet.
