Dismembering Social Security

...He tossed the ball right back to the media, saying it would be helpful if local stations disclosed to their viewers that they chose to use these reports...

...The New York Times devoted more than two full pages to exposing phony news reports...

...68 million for teacher enhancement...

...The Administration operates what can only be described as its own TV production company, feeding complete news packages to television stations that usually do not bother to disclose their source...

...instead, the half century of Cold War ended as he predicted it would...

...White House communications director Nicole Devenish says, "We feel good about where we are, but we recognize there is much to be done...

...Foster's analysis showed that the program would cost an estimated $534 billion over 10 years, which was $134 billion more than the Administration was telling Congress...

...But in the more restricted circles of his supporters, the emphasis is on ideology...

...But now Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice openly rebuked him and canceled a scheduled visit to Cairo...

...His views had been communicated to the State Department in 1946, when he was deputy head of the U.S...

...The Supreme Court ruled last June that the U.S...

...He advocated negotiating with the USSRforamutual withdrawal of forces from Germany, but got little support within the Harry S. Truman and Eisenhower Administrations...

...Italian, Swedish and German authorities have reported kidnappings on their streets of persons who are then spirited off to other countries on planes that have been chartered by CIA front companies...

...Consequently, a report showing Iraqi-Americans jubilant over the fall of Baghdad, another praising airport security as "remarkable," and yet another showing the Administration as determined to maintain open markets for American farmers, all commissioned by government departments, were aired without that fact being communicated to the viewing public...

...One hears the sounds of tentativeness coming from the Republicans, talk of "everything being on the table," of "it doesn't have to be this year...

...The CIA's rendition program apparently goes far beyond Guantânamo Bay...

...Hatching Democracy Something remarkable is happening in the Middle East...

...and $10 million for screening the hearing of newborn babies...

...As good a barometer as any of the situation is that Administration figures are saying "crisis" less and "problem" more in trying to enlist support for what are still rather unspecific proposals...

...It means transferring an inmate in great secrecy to a country like Yemen or Egypt, where interrogation can be pretty rough...

...How does he judge the benefit of cutting railroad subsidies against the economic cost of more cars on the road and more crowded airports...

...Between the White House and the stations that act like Soviet television...

...I have been reading in the Administration's budget for fiscal year 2006 a list of 154 programs that the President wants to eliminate or sharply reduce...

...Ideological Numbers It is not that President Bush fails to take heed when Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan sounds dire warnings about an unsustainable deficit...

...Asked at a recent news conference about the video news release practice, the President replied that the packages are "within the law...

...The case represents a triumph of symbolism over substance...

...After leaving office, he admitted in a book that his rosy scenario was simply a fraud...

...The memo also said this was "an important moral issue," as though assuming that moral and political are the same thing...

...W Averell Harriman, the U.S...

...Since Bush sounded the alarm in his State of the Union address about the Social Security system heading toward bankruptcy, the Administration has made little headway in persuading the country that there is a need for fundamental change...

...On this supposition the CIA had been operating a program termed "rendition," which has nothing to do with music...

...But his likeliest challenger, MP Ayman Nour, was in jail for allegedly forging documents related to the formation of his alGhad Party—prompting the street demonstrations on his behalf...

...Video news releases, you might call them, except that press releases are usually identifiable as to source...

...Speaking to leaders of religious charities, he announced, "I don't support the dramatic reduction of the program...

...It declared that the Kremlin was "impervious to the logic of reason, but highly sensitive to the logic of force...

...Covert Propaganda When the President was asked about paying commentators like Armstrong Williams to praise Administration programs and policies, he said, "There has to be a nice independent relationship between the White House and the press...

...A grassroots movement against autocracy is emerging, without any significant "Great Satan" antiAmerican component...

...That project received an innovation award for its imaginative approach...

...In 1952, in his fifth month as ambassador to Moscow, he went to West Berlin on leave...

...How do you compromise with a crusade...

...In Iraq, the insurgency rages on, and efforts to bring opposing sectarian factions into a government have taken longer than expected...

...If Republicans and Democrats are having trouble finding common ground for negotiation on the issue, it is not surprising...

...He saw the debate over Social Security as "a monumental clash of ideas" that will help the nation "move away from dependency on government...

...It was restored to the budget by the Senate...

...X His name is forever attached to one letter and one word...

...Yet Hezbollah—its prestige among its largely Shiite supporters high from having driven the United States out of Beirut in 1984 and the Israelis out of Southern Lebanon in 2000— appears ready, with Syrian and Iranian support, to resist change...

...In Egypt, Mubarak's promise of a multiparty election remains marred by the legal cloud hanging over Ayman Nour, who is out on bail scheduled for a June trial...

...The scholar-diplomat also urged the U.S...

...has exclusive control over Guantânamo Bay and therefore prisoners are entitled to access to American courts...

...In 1997, while governor of Texas, Bush had dinner at his official residence in Austin with Ed Crane, president of the libertarian Cato Institute, and José Piñera, who, as labor minister in General Augusto Pinochet's regime in Chile, had taken that country's pension system private...

...This is the latest example of a disturbing tendency by zealots to play fast and loose with numbers as they strive to remake and downsize government...

...The second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq on March 19, for example, found the ranks of the coalition of the willing thinning out...

...Moreover, the Syrian-sponsored Hezbollah organization has turned out even bigger crowds in Beirut than the freedom-from-Syria movement...

...The series of town hall meetings with the President or with members of Congress appears to have left the public somewhere between unimpressed and unconcerned...

...According to Crane, who confirmed to me a report in Mother Jones magazine, Governor Bush said, "José, you make a very compelling case...

...Exaggerated numbers have come to serve several ideological purposes...

...In public, the Administration has shied away from the question of benefit reductions...

...In Cairo, too, the streets were briefly alive with shouts of kifaya...

...What about the stations that run these government packages on their news programs...

...On another quaint premise the American government assumes the right to send suspects wherever it chooses— country of origin or elsewhere—no matter what kind of interrogation and harsh treatment awaits them there...

...30 million for community service activities...

...Thus suspected socalled enemy combatants—750 of them at one point—have been held under rigorous conditions, without access to a court...

...In the past the United States would have avoided criticizing Mubarak, a key figure in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process...

...Yet it is hard to think of America or the world today without the profound effect Kennan had in averting a hot and possibly nuclear war...

...government«) withdraw from its public advocacy of democracy and human rights, a position that would not sit well with the Bush Administration...

...After a closed meeting of House Republicans, Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas said there was "not one negative comment" about the scheme...

...There is no equally powerful right to death movement...

...The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has said the Administration's practice may amount to improper "covert propaganda...

...Help of a different sort was provided by Chief Medicare Actuary Richard Foster, who says he was only trying to save his job when he agreed to sit on some hot numbers that couldhave derailed passage of the Medicare drug benefit last year...

...It is where the compassionate conservative President chooses to make his cuts...

...there should be enough shame to go around...

...The Bush Administration's suppositions have not been faring well in the courts...

...As the battle raged over her, there was Terri, who couldsmile and grimace spontaneously, but could not speak or respond to stimuli...

...And how does he rate the effectiveness of the Hope Six program of mixedpublic-private housing thathe proposes to eliminate...

...Almost at random I noted that marked for termination are items like $205 million for comprehensive school reform...

...225 million for Even Start, devoted to teaching family literacy...

...The Administration sought to cut $2 billion, or about 35 per cent, from this popular program...

...President Bush said "a liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region...

...In Lebanon, Syria maintains its control...

...I think the coalition has been buoyed by the courage of the Iraqi people...

...This is known among antigovernment conservatives as "starving the beast...

...The passionate protest was triggered by the assassination of popular former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri—an assassination the Lebanese believed was engineered by Syrian President Bashar alAssad...

...Moral Ironies I make no claim to complete dispassion in the bizarre and tragic case of Terri Schiavo, the brain-dead woman President Bush strove to keep alive with special legislation...

...They chanted kifaya (enough) and demanded freedom from the Syrian military, who have occupied their country for more than a quarter of a century...

...The code of ethics of the RadioTelevision News Directors Association says a station should "clearly disclose the origin of information and label all material provided by outsiders...

...I am reminded of the Reagan Administration's budget director, David Stockman, who cooked up fanciful revenue projections that he called the "rosy scenario...

...Targeted for cuts are programs like watershed rehabilitation, Alaska native villages, grants for adult education, and Community Development Block Grants...

...The kifaya cries went up after the successful Iraqi election on January 30...

...There he remarked toareporter that life in the Soviet capital was like life in a German prison camp, except that "we are at liberty to go out and walk the streets under guard...

...Some of her other expenses were covered by the million-dollarproceeds of a malpractice suit, the kind of suit the President has fought to scale back...

...In case anyone doubts the ideological underpinning of the drive to overhaul Social Security, Wehner made it clear that "we consider our Social Security reform not simply an economic challenge but a moral goal and a moral good...

...Polls indicate that support for revamping Social Security has dropped since the President started his concentrated campaign...

...The last, initiated during the days of President Ronald Reagan, provides funding to cities and counties to develop viable urban communities...

...He says Bushhas to shiftpublic opinion soon, or "you might have some questions about the President succeeding...

...As for conservatives who want investment accounts without touching benefits, Wehner calls that "a bad idea...

...Nevertheless, it would be well not to count one's democratic chickens before they are hatched...

...In Beirut, crowds massed in the streets and forced the resignation, at least temporarily, of the Syrian-controlled government...

...Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, however, says he wants to be realistic and not move until he has a bill that can clear the Senate...

...One can speculate on whether Iraq has served as a beacon light for democratic change in the Middle East...

...It has already competed in elections, winning 12 seats in Parliament...

...President Bush, juggling numbers as he stumped the country for his new budget, said every program he proposed to eliminate or reduce was deemed to be ineffective and inefficient...

...How does he rate the effectiveness of the Medicaid funds he wants to cut against more emergency room treatment for lack of early intervention...

...On March 13, the Federal District Court forthe District of Columbia issued an emergency order blocking the transfer of 13 Yemenis to Yemen pending a hearing to determine if they are in danger of mistreatment there...

...But if, as Bush has said, we are witnessing the "last gasp of a discredited past," it is likely to be long and painful...

...It may be that Hezbollah—labeled by the State Department as a terrorist organization and linked to such acts as the bombing of the U.S...

...For instance, they can force cuts in spending to deal with revenue shortfalls...

...She did not know what a great contribution she was making to morality and politics in America...

...During the run-up to the war...

...Kennan hadreservations about the war in Korea, opposed intervention in Vietnam, and opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb...

...The letter is X, the pseudonym he chose for an unorthodox article in Foreign Affairs magazine in 1947 on Soviet policy...

...Among other great ironies, a large part of Terri's hospice costs were paid by Medicaid, a program the Administration and conservatives in Congress would sharply reduce...

...He added, "Everybody's anxious for the troops to come home...

...What is the origin of the President's preoccupation with undoing a successful program that dates back to Franklin D. Roosevelt...

...But journalists on the take aren't the half of it...

...The doctor in the Senate, Frist looked at some four-year-old videotape and hazarded an off-the-cuff diagnosis that Terri was minimally conscious—that is, not in a vegetative state...

...The bill passed with legislators in the dark about the expected cost, which grows as time marches on...

...The Democrats, for once, have the luxury of standing on the sidelines while Republicans agonize about where and when to go on Social Security...

...Stalin declared Kennan persona non grata and he returned to Washington, where he soon became embroiled in serious disagreements with President Dwight D. Eisenhower's hawkish secretary of state, John Foster Dulles...

...I do believe that privatizing Social Security is the most important domestic issue facing this nation...

...That is not to say the march of democracy will be halted in Lebanon...

...But Wehner wrote that "we're going to take a very close look at changing the way benefits are calculated...

...Both DeLay and Frist disclaimed responsibility for a one-page Republican memorandum calling the debate over the Schiavo legislation a "great political issue" that would appeal to the party's base...

...ambassador to Moscow from 1943 to 1946,once said Kennan understood Russia better than he understood the United States...

...He may have had it right...

...Bush and Congress took the Schiavo case seriously enough to interrupt their Easter vacations and fly back to Washington for the speedy passing and signing of the bill seeking to federalize the case...

...The current projection is $ 1.2 trillion, or $720 billion ifyoumake allowance for certain savings and offsets...

...The word is "containment," the essence of a policy of maintaining peaceful pressure on the Soviet Union until the collapse of Communist rule that he regarded as inevitable...

...Then there is Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, in whose jurisdiction Social Security lies...

...She became the cause célèbre of the Right to Life movement...

...It found an unexpected defender, though, in conservative Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate...

...But how does he measure effectiveness...

...No one worked harder for passage than DeLay, who must have enjoyed the respite from his own ethical problems, and Frist, who may have his eye on 2008...

...Apparently seeking to divert demands for change, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced a change in the election law to permit competitive elections...

...The concept of "personal" or "private" accounts has created a certain amount of confusion, because it is not directly related to the matter of assuring Social Security's future financing...

...Quaint Premises The American military has been operating on the quaint premise that the piece of Cuba called Guantânamo Bay, fully American-controlled since the Spanish-American War, is somehow foreign territory, outside the reach of the U.S...

...And how do we, as citizens, deal with government numbers that we can't trust, that threaten to undermine the whole legislative process...

...mission to Moscow, in what became known as "The Long Telegram...

...George F. Kerrnan had a strong affection for the Russian people and strong contempt for its rulers...

...The specter of the disastrous defeat of the Clinton national health insurance plan still haunts the White House and is giving officials pause about whether they are ready for a showdown...

...And, if successful, "will rank as one of the most significant conservative governing achievements ever...

...A limitedcirculation memo by Peter Wehner, director of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, said the overhaul of Social Security "will be one of the most conservative undertakings of modern times...

...Marine barracks in 1983—is venturing into mainstream politics...

...Only three days earlier he said at a news conference, "It's amazing how much progress has been made...

...Still, Bush continued to paint a rosy picture of developments in Iraq...

...But a Washington PostABC poll indicated that a majority of Americans did not believe he had a clear plan for bringing them home...

...justice system...