When you diss Dubya, you diss yourself

David Brooks, in today's New York Times, writing the Social Security "reform" obituary:

Furthermore, Republicans didn't really have a strategy to get their proposals through Congress. They seemed to think that if the president held enough town hall meetings around the country, they could somehow bulldoze the Democrats.

David Brooks, in the New York Times of January 8th [$ link]:

The president's role [in Social Security Reform] -- at the Inauguration and the State of the Union address and after -- will be to educate the country about the problem and lay out some parameters. He doesn't need to say what the legislation should look like. That's too wonky. He should talk about what the country should look like. Social Security is more than accounting; it's values.