Krugman on Bush/Soc Sec & truth telling: "Fool me once ... "

[papau]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/18/opinion/18krugman.html

January 18, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
That Magic Moment
By PAUL KRUGMAN

A charming man courts a woman, telling her that he's a wealthy independent businessman. Just after the wedding, however, she learns that he has been cooking the books, several employees have accused him of sexual harassment and his company is about to file for bankruptcy. She accuses him of deception. "The accountability moment is behind us," he replies.

Last week President Bush declared that the election was the "accountability moment" for the war in Iraq - the voters saw it his way, and that's that. But Mr. Bush didn't level with the voters during the campaign and doesn't deserve anyone's future trust.

I won't belabor the W.M.D. issue, except to point out that the Bush administration, without exactly lying, managed to keep most voters confused. According to a Pew poll, on the eve of the election the great majority of voters, of both parties, believed that the Bush administration had asserted that it found either W.M.D. or an active W.M.D. program in Iraq.<snip>

Still, there are two reasons why the selling of Social Security privatization shouldn't be another slam dunk.

One is that we're not talking about secret intelligence; the media, if they do their job, can check out the numbers and see that they don't match what Mr. Bush is saying. (A good starting point is Roger Lowenstein's superb survey in The Times Magazine last Sunday.)

The other is that we've been here before. Fool me once ...

[RobertSeattle]

1. Why haven't Dem's jump on the "Accountability" BS statement

Leading Democrats should be saying over and over again "Accountability is 7 by 24 - not one every 4 years on election day"

[liberal N proud]

2. But, bush has already fooled the American people many times

They will simply buy and lies he repeats multiple time and the media repeats many more times for him.
I fear that the public is so snowjobed by this regime that it does not matter.
And will we get any help from the Democrats in Congress? My guess is not, they don't need to worry about collecting Social Security with the retirement plan they have, who cares about the constituent, just worry about the lobby.

[quiet.american]

3. Alas, true enough n/t

[nodictators]

4. A stolen election is not "accountability."

Krugman is right on the mark again!

Now, Bush is not just fooling us, he's also planning to take OUR money. His privatization plan is just a scam to destroy Social Security. This follows his Medicare scam wherein he gave more than $139 billion to the drug companies. And that followed his WMD scam.

And if he gets away with his secretive plan to "overhaul" or "reform" or "privatize" Social Security, he will implement a flat tax, which would be highly regressive.

How much will we let him get away with?