Bob Novak confirms Clinton opposed Private Accts (but Lieberman?, &

[papau]

Nelson of Nebraska, Lincoln of Arkansas and Baucus of Montana all meet with GOPer L. Graham on "compromise" discussion of wage base increase plus whatever) - and Novak dreams - even dreams that Conrad of North Dakota might be getting involved since he "showed interest" but said he could not attend because of a schedule conflict.

interesting ............

I Bet the media will still be repeating the GOP's "Clinton said there was a crisis" (forgetting it was based on problem in 25 years per 98 projection - not 40 yrs as in the 04 projection), and GOP's cute lie "Clinton favored private accounts" (where addon voluntary additional contribution based accounts are a bit different than carving out current payroll taxes and borrowing $2 trillion). I noticed Fox and the Wall Street Journal had no problem continuing with the lies this weekend - maybe they don't read Novak!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/17/novak.socials ...

Social Security Rubicon (Bob Novak confirms Clinton opposed priv Accts)


<snip>In the late 1990s, Gregg had commitments for personal accounts from four prominent Democratic senators: Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Bob Kerrey, Chuck Robb and John Breaux. What's more, these Democrats accepted the idea without higher payroll taxes. The problem is that Bill Clinton was president, and he opposed any kind of personal accounts.

<snip>Now, all four Democrats buying into personal accounts are gone from the Senate. The four Democrats who met with Graham last week -- Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Max Baucus of Montana -- certainly are not committed to anything approaching Bush's proposal. Of these four, only Nelson could be called a moderate conservative. At best, from the White House point of view, the others are moderate liberals who occasionally defect from the party line.

The most interesting result that eventually could emerge from the meeting would be Baucus, ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, agreeing to co-sponsor a Social Security reform. He seldom takes a conservative position, but did support Bush's 2001 income tax cut.

Even more intriguing is the possibility of Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota getting involved. As ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, Conrad has been a persistent basher of Bush's economic plans and purist supporter of the Social Security system. Conrad was invited to the meeting by Graham and showed interest, but said he could not attend because of a schedule conflict.<snip>

[Gman]

1. I think the GOP played into Clinton's hands on this one

He can't not go public and denounce this assertion. The Big Dog has much more credibility than anyone in Bushco. They'll accuse him of lying which will be to their detriment.

[papau]

2. The Wall Street Journal lies this weekend were less than I expected

of them.

I thought they would drop the mantra and pretend they nevered said the lie to begin with.

It will be interesting to see what media "critics" do with this.

[Gman]

3. I think the lack of responses on this thread

is indicative of overall awareness of this. Either it may already be dead as a talking point, or it's flying under the radar.