Boy oh boy, Harold Meyerson is good:

But if there's one enduring motif in the life of George W. Bush, it is that he's always been sheltered from the consequences of risk -- that is, of failure. Exposed to the draft, he had business and political associates of his father get him a slot in a National Guard unit far from Vietnam. As an oil bidness entrepreneur, he would have gone belly-up on several occasions but for the intervention of more such associates, for whom the notion of helping out the vice president's boy had a certain je ne sais quoi. And when he was a presidential candidate, even a defeat at the polls could be reversed by the Republican majority on the Supreme Court.

No wonder risk and opportunity are all jumbled up in the mind of George W. Bush. Privilege has trumped risk at every turn in his life.

But it's not Bush alone who suffers from this confusion. Republican members of Congress, who also preach the gospel of opportunity, nonetheless cling to their defined-benefit pensions rather than replace them with a congressional 401(k) plan. I don't know how many, if any, have renounced their congressional health insurance for a private account they themselves own and shell out for, but I suspect it would be a small caucus indeed.

The dirty little secret of Bushonomics is that risk -- excuse me, opportunity -- is for suckers. Like the American people.