Post-debate debate: Mary Cheney, the "war president" and Social Security

A few items on the issues in the post-third-debate discussion.  Hesiod on the weeping and gnashing of teeth about Kerry mentioning Mary Cheney: Dick Cheney - Angry Father 10/15/04.

So, John Kerry speaking positively, respectfully and thoughtfully about their daughter makes Dick Cheney mad, and causes Lynne Cheney to accuse Kerry of being a "bad man."

But, when a bigoted, fundie wacko calls Mary Cheney an "aberration," they resort to hard looks and then shut up.

Not only has Mary been part of outreach efforts to gays and lesbians on behalf of the Republican Party, she's playing a very active role in the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign.  Hesiod says:

Memo to the "liberal media," that ignored George W. Bush's dishonest drumbeat for war, ignored the GOP's bigoted positions on gay rights and civil unions, ignored the GOP's cynical, code-word-filled, appeal-to-racist rhetoric on affirmative action, ignored their neo-McCarthyite bullying tactics against those who disagree with them...SUDDENLY gets their nipples in a knot because John Kerry dared to respectfully and thoughtfully mention that Mary Cheney is a lesbian.

Shame on you. And God help this country.

Pointing out hypocrisies of the other side is a stock feature of politics.  But it's painfully easy on this issue.  Duncan Black (Atrios) provides one of many available examples here.

I read the debate rather than watching it live.  But I was surprised that Kerry's just mentioning Mary Cheney was something the Republicans chose to make an issue.  Cheney himself referred to her in his debate with Edwards.  And Kerry's comment didn't strike me as anything out of line or even unusual.

Sidney Blumenthal in The Guardian (UK) 10/15/04 writes that Bush's best is not good enough:

Bush's story is only of the "war president". As he tells it, September 11 leads him in a straight line to invade Iraq, and "freedom is on the march". True or not, it is a simple story that many can follow. But his narrative of the "homeland president" is a melange of avoidances and denials. Chronology is crucified, cause and effect stood on their heads. Under his aegis, nearly one million jobs have been lost, the worst record since the Great Depression; he has squandered the largest surplus and created the largest deficit; more than 4.5 million have lost their health insurance and more than 45 million are uncovered; and so it goes on. ...

Haunted by his father's defeat, Bush's presidency has been a case study in reaction formation. He marched to Baghdad, ensured he had no enemy to his right, and cut taxes regardless of the deficit. In the last debate, he sputtered about "a liberal senator from Massachusetts", repeating attack lines from his father's old campaign and coming full circle in pursuit of the gilded crown.

Picking up on the same comment I grumped about before, economist James Galbraith argues that Schieffer was wrong, Kerry was right Salon.com 10/14/04.  He gives a nine-point run-down on how bogus the Republican claim about Social Security being in financial trouble is.  A couple of the points:

2. Social Security is an entitlement. Not even Congress can easily interfere with its payments. Congress would have to vote to default on the bonds Social Security holds for benefits to fail over the next 40 years. It would have made more sense for Schieffer to say, "We all know that the Pentagon is running out of money" -- military spending must be appropriated each year. But we all know that the Pentagon won't be permitted to run out of money. Ditto Social Security, in spades. ...

5. After 2018, because of the retirement of the baby boomers, it's likely that Social Security benefits will exceed payroll tax revenues. Is this a problem? Not really. The program's trustees project that benefits can be paid with no changes at all in the program until 2042. The Congressional Budget Office says 2052. If the economy does as well between now and then as it did during the past 75 years, no changes will ever be needed. And if it doesn't, the real benefit when shortfalls hit will still be higher than today.

The bottom line on Social Security is that it's a successful federal program of social insurance.  But since the program started during the Franklin Roosevelt administration, there have always been Republicans who wanted to do away with the program.  Bush's privitization scheme is just the latest of those efforts.