I think you actually agree with me, and I with you. Boomers paid into social security, and the Federal government sent Reagan effectively borrowed against those dollars to fund basic operations.

Social security is pay as you go, though, and there was never any "lockbox" as they used to say back in the nineties. Hence, the burden falls on the younger generation, who are fewer and more poorly employed than ever, to support the boomers, who are numerous and relatively wealthier than those elderly at the time social security was set up.

We agree that the stock market looked like the only option as Clinton etc held the line on wages, and I'd add offering credit in place of increased real wages.

We may disagree on the sanity of Clinton and Bushes gifts to the boomers of expanding Medicare eligibility to 55 year olds and adding an unfunded drug benefit as a boon to both boomers and big pharma. But, I think maybe you would agree. All of these expansions occurring even as that same Reagan-era agreement pushed the retirement age back for post-boomers. And, these programs projected to bankrupt EXACTLY when post boomers reach retirement, if not before.

Clinton, of course, set up the current system of global competition for labor, which has proven completely unwinnable for average workers (though enriched Clinton himself).

Every describable type of shit is hitting the fan for younger workers now: high tuition loans, no jobs, bad jobs, payroll tax burdens for boomer programs, Obama's trillions to boomers and the rich called "stimulus," Bush's unpaid Iraq war, the spiraling costs of Afghanistan, and now, a questionable insurance program that looks like Obama's sweetheart backscratch with insurance companies with not even a public option escape hatch. And, like the payroll taxes to fund boomers, this one is a pay-it-or-go-to-jail payroll tax right from the paycheck.

I don't think Conason and Democrats have researched the impact of calling it the Kennedy bill on their intended audience.

Whatever collegiality Kennedy enjoyed within the beltway translates to hostility in the rest of America among conservatives. The same Republican senators who drank with him in DC railed against him in their home states.

But the problem is much deeper than that. Outside of the queer voters of Massachussets, and more broadly, the Eastern seaboard, the Kennedy mystique is a cult imposed from the outside. A yellowed curio at best, an incredibly arrogant demand at worst.

At the very least, I hope the idiotic Democrats who run this party will take a deep breath, wait for Kennedy's body to cool a bit at Arlington, and then rethink their options.

I personally think the fix was in from the start on this turkey, and slapping Kennedy's name on it is a sign of desparation aimed at getting liberals to get in line. Forget it.

Adding Kennedy's name this bill is perhaps shows the unconscious intention to bury it along with the Senator.

Democrats are scared of complaining about the guns, so they attack disagreeable words.

But attacking words is a no-winner for First Amendment loving Democrats. It just sounds hypocritical, and very much like the Bush administration. And behind the false claims about the health reforms are many true claims that the Democrats fail to address. The anger is real, and has cause, and suppressing its expression will have an effect opposite to intent.

Better to focus on the real threat--the guns. Of course the NRA will hate it, so what? Striking a firm pose that guns are not acceptable in all social situations has far more sympathy than Democrats realize.

The signal that the Obamacrats are sending toward guns, for example, allowing them in National Parks, is not one of accomadation to the 2d amendment, but rather capitulation to bullying. That's a dangerous stance to gun zealots. These are people who need, and usually respect, when a firm line is drawn for them.

For those of us who are fundamentally Americans, rather than party partisans, tit for tat censures accomplish little. They also tend to obscure the real concerns about this health care bill.

I think better would be for Democrats to strike a pose that their ideas speak for themselves and they don't need to back them up with armed threats. And then move the talk to their responsibility to protect peaceful participants at the town halls from weapons.

Part of the problem here is that politicians are so full of themselves and so used to deference in their lives. Before the carefully controlled town halls of the TV era, town halls, PTA meetings, what have you, were long periods of boredom punctuated by shouting.

But, people didn't bring guns with them. Or stand outside with guns. That's nonsense from Western movies.

Focus on the guns.

A very confused message. Maybe Democrats want to honor Kennedy because they know health care is doomed, and so want to get something out of this whole sorry debacle?

This part of Conason is, well, shocking:

"Kennedy was privileged and perhaps arrogant, but no more so than the scions of the Bush clan or many another wealthy politician. His ignominious episodes no longer shock in an era when the iniquity of the righteous right-wing seems to be exposed every day."

His "ignominious episode" was to kill a woman, and literally walk away from the crime. I'm shocked by that, yes. More shocked than by "the iniquity" of, say, Sanford's spending hypocrisy and South American dalliances. I'm shocked by the rapaciousness of the Clinton clan, illegitimate money resulting from the fact that they turned on the American worker. I'm shocked by basically everything W. did in his entire eight years.

And just for the record, the Kennedys gave us nothing.

Americans took it.

This "win one for the skipper" strategy is going to fail with younger Americans, conservatives, and basically anyone who doesn't live in Boston, DC, or New York City.