Daily Howler - April 29, 2005

MASLIN’S FOLLY! The Times praised part of Coulter’s book. Here’s what we found when we fact-checked

FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2005

THEY WERE WITH STUPID: Dick Durbin did better on Hardball last night. After Bush’s news conference, Durbin tried to tell the public how much those private accounts would cost:

DURBIN (4/28/05): I’d put everything on the table but privatization. And I was there in 1983, a brand-new congressman. I voted for it, because Social Security is so important. But privatization is a loser. It doesn`t strengthen Social Security. It cuts benefits dramatically and it adds $5 trillion or more to the national debt for our kids. That`s not a way to approach this.

That was better than Durbin’s effort in March, when he said (on Meet the Press) that the transition would cost “$2 trillion to $5 trillion,” thereby understating what Dick Cheney himself had said (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/7/05). But to this day, Democrats still can’t coordinate even this simple, key point.