Wexler Becomes a Bubble Buddy

There's a scene in the Spongebob Squarepants movie (you can't tell at all that I have at least one pre-teen kid, can ya?) where Spongebob and Patrick are in this tough-guy saloon. They visit the restroom and discover bubble soap in the soap dispensers. Just loving to play with bubbles, they go bananas with the stuff until one bubble floats out into the rest of the bar. Big problem - the tough-guy bar patrons have a rule: no sissies allowed upon penalty of being beaten to a pulp, and the top sissy criterion is playing with bubbles.

So the bartender orders everybody, including Spongebob and Patrick, to line up for a sissy test. The test is his humming the "Goofy Goober" theme song, and anybody who can't resist singing the lyrics will be outed as a sissy, and then Katie bar the door. Well, of course, earlier in the picture we see that our two protagonists are Goofy Goober fanatics, and as the bartender walks slowly down the line humming I'm a Goofy Goober, they're practically bursting capillaries trying to keep from busting out in doom-guaranteeing song.

Just as the two sissies are about to explode, two other patrons further down the line beat them to it, with inevitably pugilistic consequences. Spongebob and Patrick make their escape in all the ensuing confusion.

Why did I explain all this? Because it's a delightful parable for Florida Donk Congressman Bob Wexler's "breaking ranks" with his fellow asses to put forth an alternative Social Security "reform" plan.

Breaking with party leaders, a Democratic congressman plans to introduce Social Security legislation, saying his first commitment is to his constituents.

Representative Robert Wexler, D-FL, said Friday: "I have the largest amount of Social Security recipients of any Democrat anywhere in the country. My allegiance to seniors is greater than my allegiance to the Democratic Party."

That's an odd thing for a Democrat to say, given that Wexler's plan is little more than a massive tax hike (which is why I put the word "reform" in quotes above). Since when do Dems not relish the prospect of raising taxes?

Apparently, if the public at large can find out about it.

CNN's Ed Henry reported yesterday on Inside Politics that "Wexler's fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill are very upset about this. They're privately giving him grief, because they feel he is playing into the Republicans' hands by calling for a tax increase.

What, these people have now suddenly rediscovered the concept of stealth? That's like a streaker running a lap around the field at halftime of the Super Bowl and then suddenly freaking out over where he left his baseball cap.

But you have to keep in mind the target of their propaganda: wavering Republicans, of which there are always far too many. The Beltway is and always has been a left-wing echo chamber, and the more the Dems can put over the fiction that Social Security private accounts are "unpopular" and "dead", etc., the less likely the majority will be able to remain unified.

Now Wexler comes along with his big, fat stickup and completely upsets the applecart by taking the focus off of the machine-gun drumbeat of propaganda lies about Bush "dismantling" Social Security and changes the paradigm to, "There the Democrats go again with their tax increases." The Bush-Pozen plan of voluntary private accounts and "progressive" benefit indexing - I think they should be calling it "The Better Deal" - looks awfully attractive next to Wexler's "more-of-the-same" statism that won't fix the actuarial problems of the system and will quite effectively tank the economy. Indeed, not only does Bush-Pozen not raise taxes, but the benefit indexation is a built-in incentive to opt out of the existing system into private investment accounts, as the Democrats know better than anybody.

Hence their frantic desire to mischaracterize it any way they can and keep public focus on their distortions. Those false depictions cannot withstand any degree of substantive scrutiny, to say nothing of contrast to a bona fide alternative from their side of the aisle that in effect blows the whistle on Donk fraud more effectively than the White House or Hill 'Pubbies ever could.

I think this was Dubya's gamble all along - that by appealing for Social Security reform ideas from both sides of the aisle he would sooner or later tickle the irrepressible lib urge to raise taxes until some Democrat finally couldn't hold out any longer and lunged forth with a like proposal.

I was dubious of this gambit, but it looks like the President has done it again.

Now that Representative Wexler has admitted being a Goofy Goober, perhaps we can now get to the business of rescuing the Social Security crown from Shell City and returning it to the future generations of Bikini Bottom.

And maybe even prevent Hillary Plankton from unseating King Neptune in 2008.

Hey, for that, anything's worth trying once.