From Holden:
Shit, another boring gaggle aboard Air Force One, which means neither Helen Thomas nor Les Kinsolving were in attendance (neither of them typically travels with the president).
The gaggle was held in flight because the Chimpster was on his way to South Carolina to talk up Social Security demolition again.
Q Senator Graham has said that he doesn’t think the President is doing enough to address the solvency problem in Social Security and he said he expects that maybe we’ll hear more about it today. Does the President have plans to talk about that?
MR. McCLELLAN: Absolutely, and he has been talking about the need to make sure that Social Security is permanently sound for our children and grandchildren. And I expect in his remarks he’ll talk about how Social Security has been a very successful program and it has worked well for those who are currently retired; it’s working well for them.
[Yadda-yadda, baby-boomers, going into the red.]
You know, I noticed over the weekend there was a wire story citing some House Democratic aides saying that they were going to — expressing that they were having a new willingness to come to the table and talk about how to move forward on a bipartisan solution. We would welcome that, if that’s the case. This House aide seemed to indicate that they were going to move away from their strategy of simply saying, we’re not going to come to the table unless you do this or that.
Yes, you read that correctly. Scotty sez the president is hanging his hat on an anonymous quote from a congressional aide. Is that all you got, Little Scottie?
Q Are we near the end of the education phase?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you heard me say last week that we’re continuing our outreach efforts to the American people. It’s important that not only that they understand that there are problems facing Social Security, but they understand the significance of those problems.
[snip]
So we’re still in that phase. It’s still early in the process. This is a difficult issue or it would have been solved a long time ago. But it is an issue that needs to be addressed and needs to be addressed now. And that’s one of the things the President is emphasizing.
In terms of the next phase, when we focus even more on solutions, we’ll be continuing to talk with members of Congress about the next phase and how to move forward together on those solutions. But we’re — you know, we’re continuing to have good discussions with members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, and the President is going to continue reaching out and encouraging all people who have ideas to come to the table. This is a time for all those who recognize the problems to come forward and talk about how we can move forward together.
Set your Phase-er on stun, Scottie!
Jeebus, what a train wreck. It’s pretty obvious that they planned their push to dismantle Social Security about as well as they planned the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq. In fact, the similarities are stunning. They plan to waste billions (actually, trillions) of your tax dollars killing Social Security while their corporate cronies make fat profits.
Maybe Paul Bremer could head-up the Social Security privatization effort, he did such a smashing job in Iraq and I hear he’s available.