Window Dressing

Check out this Tom Toles cartoon.

So George W. Bush and his party stick out a finger in the wind and realize it isn't blowing the way they like it. From the NYT:

...the polls and focus groups that Mr. Bush says he ignores show that the public doesn't like to hear the word "private" when the topic is Social Security. So the administration now scrupulously uses the label "personal accounts" and in a 104-page book on selling the plan, it urges Congressional Republicans to do the same.

"Crisis" is another word the president is likely to avoid on Wednesday...the president has now taken to replacing the "c" word with "serious problems," which he says will result in a system that will be "bankrupt," "broke," "flat broke" or "flat bust" by the time today's younger workers retire. That's also not true. If the "b" words fall flat, perhaps Mr. Bush will move on to "d" and start warning that Social Security is doomed, defaulting, dreadful and in a dadgum fix.

However the White House spins it, it's all code for "private accounts."

Privatize to personalize. Crisis to serious problem. Before you know it, they'll start telling us the sky isn't blue, it's periwinkle.

Come on. Playing these silly word games won't get us anywhere.

Let's call things what they really are, shall we? It's private accounts, private accounts, private accounts.


+Save/Share | |