Third Way has been trying to privatize Social Security since 1990s. This is not playing chess.

[markpkessinger]

30. Nobody here has absolved Republicans of anything . . .

. . . but the reality is Republicans will do what Republicans will do. And it is beyond pathetic for us, as Democrats, to bitch and moan about Republican obstruction when our own elected officials, including the POTUS, have adopted the opposition's framing of the question: i.e., that we must begin to address the deficit right now in order to ward off the inflation bogeyman, who lurks just around the bend, even if that means hacking away at two of our party's signature accomplishments of the past century, and even if that will mean a reduction in assistance to people who are already really hurting. But no Republican has put a gun to the President's head demanding he include chained CPI and a rise in the eligibility age for Medicare on the table, and to do so as part of his opening volley in negotiations with House Republicans. He came up with that all by himself.

Now, I realize this may be part of some calculated strategy, banking on the fact that Republicans aren't really interested in making any deal at all. But as Paul Krugman recently pointed out, if that is indeed the case, the President is playing a very dangerous game, because one of these days Republicans might just wake up to the fact that here's an opportunity to make a dent in the social safety net they've wanted to dismantle for the last 70 years.

As for the DLC, while the organization, per se, may be defunct, the philosophy that gave rise to it -- right-wing, corporatist economics with a few liberal social stances thrown in so as not to scare the horses -- is alive and well in the very party to which it should be anathema. That's right: the Democratic Party.