on lovin' that josh marshall guy...

From yesterday's Talking Points Memo, by Joshua Micah Marshall, where he discusses Bush's repeated reluctance to spell out what he plans to do with Social Security, such as in statements like this: "The tendency in Washington is, ‘OK, Mr. President, you play your cards now and we’ll decide if we’re going to play ours. I’m not going to do that. I’m keeping them close to the vest."

Marshall replies: "Sure, yes, there's legislative politicking and making the first move and all that. But this goes a bit beyond that. The president is pushing this. This is all about him. Absent initiative from him, replacing Social Security with private accounts wouldn't even be on the agenda. Though the policy has some ardent Republican supporters, the impetus all comes from him.

When you brush away all the legislative gobbledygook and beltway jockeying, you have a president who wants to put what is probably the most popular government program in American history under the knife and he won't even say what he wants to do to it.

Shouldn't his critics just be saying over and over: level with the public? Tell them what you want to do to Social Security."