Behind The Curve

So I got up this morning and watched just enough of Bush's press conference to be outraged. Then I had to go drive the length of the State and my outrage faded a bit. But, there is some stuff in that really needs to be whacked so here we go.

First- Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank? What!? Why?! What?! What on earth qualifies the man to head up the biggest development agency in the world? Wolfowitz was the idea man behind the Iraq War, which is pretty much as far as you can get from economic development. Just once, could Bush punish failure? One time! Steve Clemons has more.

Then there's SS. Talking Points Nails Him:

I'm not sure what exactly it will take for the conventional wisdom to the Washington press corps and the elite punditocracy to stop saying that President Bush has a plan to save Social Security from insolvency and the Democrats don't. You'd think
Advertisement the absence of any such plan on Bush’s part would be enough, but clearly it's not.
...
So let’s be clear where things stand. This is fundamentally an ideological fight. Democrats want to keep Social Security as a form of social insurance, and Bush wants to transform it into something else. Democrats are not willing to make a deal on solvency if it means giving up social insurance. And Bush is not willing to make a deal on solvency unless they do.

Given all this, how on earth can so many people continue to claim that Bush wants to save Social Security while the Democrats have their heads in the sand? How can this almost universally-accepted aphorism be said to have any basis in reality?

For a final kick, check out Juan Cole in Salon on sorting out what is really happening in the Middle East with democracy.