The Republican Party Platform (Which McCain could have changed if he were willing to Straight Talk the platform committee) says:

We believe the solution should give workers control over, and a fair return on, their contributions. No changes in the system should adversely affect any current or near-retiree. Comprehensive reform should include the opportunity to freely choose to create your own per-sonal investment accounts which are distinct from and supplemental to the overall Social Security system.

Sure sounds like privatization to me.

Or perhaps McCain wants to tell us why he, as head of the Republican Party, wasted time and money writing up a document that he doesn't agree with on central issues.

http://www.gop.com/2008Platform/

Give Michael Scherer a break! He just got confused and thought he was still writing for Salon.

It's long been established that John McCain does not speak for his campaign. Just the other day his spokesman had to explain why who would not agree to meet the Prime Minister of Spain, using a form of logic normally reserved for 3 year olds.

At least once a week McCain says something that has to be clarified by a campaign spokesperson the next day (in the case of the Fundementals comment from earlier this week McCain himself did the 'clarifying).

riffle: actually, I don't think so. Personal accounts that are supplemental to SS are fine: SS works just the way it always has, but you get to contribute extra money that goes into a retirement account somewhere. It's not clear to me why this would be some sort of advantage over an IRA, but it's not a threat to SS.

Diverting SS taxes out of the SS trust fund and into private accounts is the thing to watch for. And it's what McCain has called for within the past couple of months, when his advisors aren't keeping him n line.

"Personal accounts that are supplemental to SS are fine: SS works just the way it always has, but you get to contribute extra money that goes into a retirement account somewhere"

I'd agree. Maybe we could call those accounts "Individual Retirement Accounts." Too bad nobody's thought of such a thing before. Oh, wait....

When a campaign's website says things that its candidate explicitly disavows, it's hard to know what the candidate actually thinks. Personally, I would go with the candidate: he knows his own mind better than his advisors do. I certainly don't think it's "dodgy" to take the candidate's word for his own beliefs over his website's.

Let's not forget that there were five and half years of Vietnmase captivity when McCain couldn't even have a website to contradict....

actually, I don't think so. Personal accounts that are supplemental to SS are fine: SS works just the way it always has, but you get to contribute extra money that goes into a retirement account somewhere. It's not clear to me why this would be some sort of advantage over an IRA, but it's not a threat to SS.

But then what is the Republican platform talking about? The "opportunity to freely choose to create your own per-sonal investment accounts which are distinct from and supplemental to the overall Social Security system" already exists and no "reform" is needed to create it -- after all, we already have IRAs, 401Ks and the ability to maintain indivdual brokerage and savings accounts.

reminds me of charles barkley a few years ago claiming he was misquoted in his "autobiography."

McCain can always disavow his website's posting but it's more difficult to disavow his own words. I he believes what is posted on his web site he should say so otherwise we should go by what he has said.

McCain can always disavow his website's posting but it's more difficult to disavow his own words.

Not for a maverick it's not!

The GOP officially purged the word "privatization" in the spring of 2005. Almost overnight. One day, they advocated privatization, the next, they abhorred privatization but continued to insist that young workers should be allowed to turn their FICA contributions over to Lehmann Brothers to be invested wisely.

Because this issue seems too complicated for most of you to understand, allow me to provide a simple explanation. What Bush and McCain wanted to do was allow workers to allocate a small portion of their compulsory FICA taxes to a private account. This is called "partial" privatization. As opposed to "complete" privatization, which would never be politically viable. To illustrate just how "partial" the proposal was, Bush floated the idea of letting workers put up to 4% of income into a private account, with a ceiling of $1,000. To put that in perspective, a worker with income over the social security wage base ($102,000 for 2008) could elect to have $1,000 placed into a private account. That would be $1,000 out of their total FICA taxes of $12,648 (12.4% of taxable income), or a meager 8% of their contribution to social security. This would have been great for younger workers, since they at least would see that money (plus returns) when they retired. Whereas under the current system, they will probably never see anywhere near their contributions ever again.

Because this issue seems too complicated for most of you to understand, allow me to provide a simple explanation.

Yes, as a Wall Street private equity attorney I'm afraid this is all just beyond me.....

This is the second time I've seen someone on the Left saying that Obama should take the Rush ad down if it's deceptive, the deception primarily being a charge that it quotes Rush out of context.

Rush Limbaugh has spent almost a quarter of a century smearing, demonizing and belittling every liberal and every Democrat he could find, using every cheap and deceptive debating trick he could come up with. Yet, the idea of taking that guy's comments out of context STILL sends some on the Left into a tizzy.

Mike

This would have been great for younger workers, since they at least would see that money (plus returns) when they retired.

Especially if they had invested in GM, Ford, Enron, Bear Stearns, Lehman, AIG or similar blue-chip pillars of the American economy.

Whereas under the current system, they will probably never see anywhere near their contributions ever again.

Nonsense, of course they will. There's absolutely no reason (other than a Republican attempt to destroy the system) why younger workers won't receive their SS benefits.

Mike, I'm with you. It thrills me to see a Democrat throw stuff like this right back in Limbaugh's face.

The Rush comments are *not* out-of-context for the purposes of that ad. The ad basically characterizes the comments as "the insults we've had to put up with", and they are indeed insults. Whether Rush was talking at a certain time, or about McCain or any specific policy is irrelevant, the ad is about linking McCain to the rest of the garbage spewed by surrogates of the republican party, and it works. It's about tone.

Tapper provides the full context of Limbaugh's remarks. I don't think it's even close to exculpatory. It may not be fair for Obama to associate McCain to Limbaugh on this issue, but it's not even a question of giving Limbaugh a taste of his own medicine; the quotation is arguably harsh but fair.

What Mike said.

We're at a gunfight, and some liberals are trying to figure out whether it'd be mean to sharpen our knives beforehand?

Seriously, taking two statements of your opponent, which are arguably inconsistent, and attacking him for the one that puts him in the worse light for voters is Politics 101. The fact that anyone on the left is willing to get sucked into a discussion over the morality or wisdom of such a standard political strategy is somewhat scary.

Don't even think of comparing Taft to McCain. That's blasphemous to the great Ohio Senator and actual real conservative unlike the right-wing social democrat McCain.

There is a difference.

Since you did not take the liberty into entertaining what Tapper really said, I broke it down rather nicely.

http://www.davidortez.com/2008/09/19/how-make-jake-tapper-look-like-a-fool