The Battle

Yes, the Great Social Security War of aught five was indeed our finest moment. Then the greatest concern was that Dems would get suckered into putting up their own 'plan' to solve the 'crisis.' The press demanded it! Even though, you might remember, the Bush administration didn't actually release a plan until the thing was basically dead. The worry wasn't simply that the Republicans might be able to ram it through, the worry was that Dems would enable and co-own a very unpopular, expensive, and likely to be ultimately disastrous policy.

But one thing was different then, though we didn't know it right away. We had Nancy Pelosi, and her response when asked about when the Dem plan was going to be revealed was:

Never. Is never good enough for you?

Bloggers understood both the issues and the political dynamic much better than most people in DC seemed to. But we had an ally who fortunately did too.