CBS Meyers: Give Sleaze A Chance (AARP Attacks)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/25/opinion/meyer/printable676502.shtml

Earnest and well-intentioned people across our earnest and well-intentioned country are all lathered because some of the folks who brought us the Swift Boat Veterans ads against John Kerry have now started a group called USA Next that is running ads against the AARP. They don't want the AARP to fight against President Bush's Social Security proposals. So the ads say that the AARP opposed our boys in uniform but supports boys who want to marry each other.

The earnest and well-intentioned think it's scurrilous and degrading to bring campaign dirty tricks into the serious business of fundamental social policy. I mean this is heavy stuff — intergenerational ethics, greedy geezers, the fiscal rights of the unborn, out years, privatization, assumed rates of returns. This is for the grown-ups.

Well, I say let's give sleaze a chance.

It's not like the "grown-ups" have done such a great job. This is like the fifth Social Security "crisis" we've had just since they cancelled "Dynasty." And we're still hearing about how the system's crash is hiding just beyond the next dawn of red ink. The massive and greedy Baby Boom generation, we've been told endlessly, is going to retire in velvet on the backs of people named Tiffany and Ethan who are now six and will be taxed at 104 percent when they get jobs. It's really bad!

But the grown-ups haven't managed to get much done except gridlock themselves into pretzels of pandering. Commissions, schlomissisions. Politicians, schmoliticans.