As predicted in this space, John Kerry jumped all over the George Bush quote in Ron Suskind's Without a Doubt that suggested Mr. Bush plans to privatize Social Security in a second term. The Washington Post reports:
John F. Kerry accused President Bush of having a secret, second-term plan to privatize Social Security starting in January, telling a church audience Sunday that the idea is "a disaster for America's middle class."Kerry based this allegation on a secondhand, unattributed account of a private speech Bush reportedly delivered to Republican supporters in September. "I am going to come in strong after my swearing in . . . with fundamental tax reform, tort reform, privatizing of Social Security," Bush was quoted as saying in a Sunday New York Times Magazine article that was highly critical of the president. It was written by Ron Suskind, co-author with former Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill of a book condemning the Bush administration...
Kerry and running mate John Edwards repeated the charge during rallies in Florida, where the concerns of retirees can dominate elections and Social Security is always a top concern.
"This might be a good surprise for the wealthy and well-connected, but it's a disaster for the middle class," Kerry told the congregation at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Columbus. "The president's privatization plan for Social Security is another way of saying to our seniors that the promise of security is going to be broken."
Well, lessee...
1) Bush *is* planning on privatizing Social Security (that it is a "partial privatization" doesn't change that fact).
2) It's a known weakness of his campaign that his actual policies, as opposed to his rhetoric, are anathema to large voting blocks
3) The Suskind article has given Kerry an opening to press home one of these points
Turnabout of the 'global test'? Not so much.