Now we have a problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place. -- John F. Kennedy
I'm an idealist without illusions. -- John F. Kennedy
Obama has looked so weak that his chief of staff has found it necessary to tout how tough he is. The thought strikes me that in Washington, there are two conventional ways to demonstrate "toughness": 1) Punch a hippie; 2) Bomb some country. We would seem to be in no position to bomb some country, so the left should be looking out. My guess is Social Security would be a natural spot to sucker punch the left in. He can justify it by saying, "I got this wonderful, magnificent, stimulus bill through, now the other side has to feel some pain." It burnishes his "bipartisan" credentials, will delight the Washington establishment, which hates and has no use for Social Security, and will allow him to claim that his failure on the stimulus bill was actually a success, a success so big that he now has to even the scales by throwing a bone to the right.
Will he do this? I don't know. But it makes perfect sense, given what we know of Washington and what we've seen from Obama.
Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm. -- John F. Kennedy
