Main Stream Media Analysis: Bush Shifts From Social Security

Or so they wish and keep trying to reporting

Yet again, beating the Bush bashers to the punch. Headline again linked.

Analysis: Bush Shifts From Social Security

Mar 13, 9:56 AM (ET)

By TOM RAUM

WASHINGTON (AP) - Running into heavy resistance to his Social Security overhaul, President Bush has started emphasizing other parts of his domestic agenda and is promoting his foreign policy goals of defeating terrorism and spreading democracy.
"These are amazing times," he tells audiences. Yet no matter which way he turns, he is finding a bumpy road.
Just short of two months into his second term, Bush still wields vast political clout and, by his accounts, has plenty of "political capital" left to spend. Still, polls show his approval ratings stuck at around 50 percent.
Failure to generate more public support for his plan for individual investment accounts for Social Security seems to have thrown the rest of his agenda off stride.
Among recent setbacks:

His initiative to control power plant emissions was rejected last week by a Republican-controlled Senate committee. His energy plan remains stalled after two unsuccessful attempts to get it through Congress in his first term.

His proposal to extend tax cuts for five years ran into opposition from Senate GOP leaders who were supporting a budget that holds tax cuts at $70 billion, rather than the $100 billion Bush proposed.

Bush's effort to allow religious groups receiving federal grants to consider a job applicant's religious beliefs has an uncertain future in the Senate after close passage in the House.

On the international front, Bush can draw comfort from successful Iraqi elections and democratic stirrings across the Middle East.
But his demands that Syria withdraw from Lebanon was undercut somewhat by a rally in Beirut that drew hundreds of thousands of pro-Syrian supporters. The demonstration was organized by Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim guerrilla group that the United States has branded a terrorist organization.
There was a fragile agreement at week's end with Europe over offering economic incentives to Iran to end its nuclear program. Nonetheless, trans-Atlantic strains are evident when it comes to Iran and European plans to resume arms sales to China.
Washington's relations with Italy has frayed after U.S. troops killed an Italian intelligence agent in Baghdad and wounded an Italian journalist.
Even the upcoming annual St. Patrick's Day celebration at the White House was clouded by political intrigue.
The peace process in Northern Ireland has suffered setbacks. Allegations have arisen about the Irish Republican Army's involvement in a bank heist and a tavern murder. As a result, Bush has scratched from the White House event political leaders who attended for 10 years. That includes Gerry Adams, head of Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing.
Bush has kept promoting his Social Security proposals. But the message and the itinerary were changed because of Republican jitters over Bush's desire for personal investment accounts - and the trillions in expected transition costs at a time of soaring budget deficits.

... more at linked article

Again, the main stream media may be wishing and hoping that what they are writing is actually what is happening.

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Senators Chafee and Nelson were on Meet the Press today and made a lot os sense when it came to solutions of the Social Security solvency issue. They both admitted that the principal question is the solvency of Social Security not be private accounts. It appears from their discussions if other members of Congress were to approach a solution in the way they discussed there may be a chance of fixing Social Security and not just giving George Bush another victory.

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