Obama and Dems play political games with Social Security

From the editorialists of the WSJ...

Democrats are trying to keep control of Congress by scaring the wig off grandma with a phantom GOP plot against Social Security. That is not news. Social Security scare tactics have been regular campaign themes since FDR. President Obama's unique contribution is to do this even as he's begging Republicans to help him reduce the deficit and reform entitlement spending.

On the one hand, Mr. Obama has charged his deficit commission with crafting a bipartisan plan to restrain entitlements. "Everything's on the table. That's how this thing's going to work," he said when he created the commission in February....Yet even as Mr. Obama beseeches Republicans, he and his political allies are playing the Social Security card for all it's worth in this campaign season.

...surely will reinforce Republican fears that the deficit commission is nothing but a political trap. Mr. Obama wants the GOP to support entitlement reforms in exchange for tax increases, but when they do he'll pocket the revenue and slam the GOP for the entitlement "cuts."

The President's bad faith is all the more notable because Social Security is less a GOP reform priority than it should be. Republicans never even brought President Bush's private account plan to the floor in 2005....

One of the few things Bush did well with the economy-- and not backed up by a GOP Congress that lacked principles and courage.

This Social Security ploy perfectly illustrates the Obama political method: Bipolar rhetoric that lurches between partisan distortion and bipartisan entreaties—all the while governing hard to the left with Democrats in Congress running the show.