Age of Reason

Anatomy of a Malefactor

Josh Marshall has begun trying to understand in detail how the Bush administration creates fake problems and then pretends to solve them.

The president and the White House have now compared their build-up to the Iraq war with their push to phase out Social Security enough times that it seems worth creating a detailed taxonomy of the Bush White House approach to major policy initiatives in order to predict their efforts over the next two years.

The Journal said last week ...

The president has yet to lay out specific ideas for changing the entitlement program; he and his aides are focused first on selling the idea of change. "For a while, I think it's important for me to continue to work with members of both parties to explain the problem," he said in a Monday news conference.

This would suggest that we're now in the lying and fear-mongering phase of the campaign, which would be followed of course by a later phase in which a specific policy remedy is brought forward, nominally meant to address the fake problem.

Perhaps if folks could note beginning and end points of various phases of the Iraq war mumbojumbo that could help us pinpoint signs to look for in the unfolding Social Security debate.

-- Josh Marshall

If you can shed any light on the relevant details, you ought to email Josh.

posted by conchis @ 10:02 PM