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Here's a Bloomberg story that pretty much sums up the current impasse over Social Security reform. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is applauded for seeking a bipartisan consensus in which "everything is on the table," including a tax increase. President Bush is booed for signaling that while he'll discuss that possibility, he is strongly opposed to it. Every Democrat quoted in the story staunchly insists -- with no room for equivocation or debate -- that a tax hike be part of the solution. Here's a whopper from Dem senator Kent Conrad:

``Both sides have to be willing to give up their fixed positions,' Conrad, 58, said at a Washington press conference last week. ``There needs to be more revenue.'

Huh? Give up "fixed positions" other than that there "needs to be more revenue!

At the same time, Bush is portrayed as stubborn and inflexible because he is willing to discuss tax hikes, but comes into the discussion opposed to them. Why is one side in this debate entitled to inflexible requirements for the outcome, and the other not? Simple -- there are two reasons. One, because the liberal media is writing the story, so it seems perfectly sensible for the least flexible people to call the most flexible people inflexible. Two, because no good deed goes unpunished -- Bush took the high road and said he would be flexible, so now any expression of his own opinions is used by his enemies as a sign of hypocrisy. God help anyone working on Social Security reform in Washington who actually gives a damn about policy. This crap is nothing but politics.

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