Daily Howler - May 6, 2005

KRAUTHAMMER’S KUTS! There are no cuts, the Post pundit says. Dems have to know how to answer
FRIDAY, MAY 6, 2005

KRAUTHAMMER’S KUTS: What’s in a “cut?” As we’ve told you, a semantic war is now under way—a semantic war about the word “cuts.” And we’ll be discussing this tedious topic over the next several weeks. Has Bush proposed “cuts” in Social Security? Or will everyone’s benefits “increase?” Dems need to know how to answer those questions—and no, it don’t come easy. From 1994 through 1996, for example, Dems kept saying that the Gingrich Congress was proposing sharp “Medicare cuts.” But they did their typical hopeless job when challenged to explain their claim, and Clinton was called a liar for two solid years—even though he was making perfectly accurate statements. Similarly, it isn’t enough to offer a peremptory diktat and declare the current war won, as Kevin Drum more-or-less did on Wednesday. (“If you spend less than you've promised on a program, you've cut the program. President Bush should shelve the nonsense about how a cut isn't really a cut.”) If Dems want to win the current fight on the merits—a strategy they routinely eschew—they have to know how to argue this point. Which brings us to Charles Krauthammer’s war-like column in this morning’s Washington Post.