BE AFRAID...BE VERY AFRAID

Kerry sees "disaster" for middle class:

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry accused President Bush on Sunday of planning a surprise second-term attempt to privatize Social Security, and forecast a "disaster for America's middle class."
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"John Kerry's misleading senior scare tactics are just another example of a candidate who will say anything to get elected," said spokesman Steve Schmidt. "No matter how false his accusations or how contradictory they are with his record of repeatedly voting for higher taxes on Social Security."

Note that Schmidt didn't actually refute Kerry's charges (an old campaign tactic), nor did Bush address them directly. Letting a surrogate mislead the voters can be explained later.

"It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission," n'est-ce pas? Especially when you're in a dead-heat race for office.

Here's the quote Kerry is referring to:

''I'm going to come out strong after my swearing in,'' Bush said, ''with fundamental tax reform, tort reform, privatizing of Social Security.'' The victories he expects in November, he said, will give us ''two years, at least, until the next midterm. We have to move quickly, because after that I'll be quacking like a duck.''

Joseph Gildenhorn, a top contributor who attended the luncheon and has been invited to visit Bush at his ranch, said later: ''I've never seen the president so ebullient. He was so confident. He feels so strongly he will win.'' Yet one part of Bush's 60-odd-minute free-form riff gave Gildenhorn -- a board member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and a former ambassador to Switzerland -- a moment's pause. The president, listing priorities for his second term, placed near the top of his agenda the expansion of federal support for faith-based institutions. The president talked at length about giving the initiative the full measure of his devotion and said that questions about separation of church and state were not an issue.

And why aren't church-state separation questions not an issue? Because if Furious George gets elected, he gets to appoint several brand-new Supreme Court justices -- in the mold of Scalia and Thomas, as promised.