Well this is nice to hear:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R.-Wis.) was asked at a CATO conference in Washington yesterday whether he had persuaded any Democrats to back his plan to rescue Social Security from its financial troubles...A questioner from the audience, stressing his own Democratic credentials, said he believed Ryan's plan should attract members of his own party and wondered whether the Wisconsin lawmaker had secured any Democratic sponsors. Ryan said he had been working with friends on the "other side of the aisle" who were favorable toward his solution, but he faced an enormous problem: intense pressure on his colleagues from the minority leadership.

I am all about Kriston's proposal for Pundit Kombat. Suggest appropriate match-ups in the comments.

As Brad notes, moving from wage-indexing to price-indexing would result in a huge benefits cut. Had someone retiring in 2005 chosen a price-indexing system, his benefits would be 60% less than his fellow retirees, and his gas bill would go unpaid. So we should certainly oppose it on those grounds.

The Training Wheel strategy makes a lot of sense to me. Maybe somebody should appoint Justin Logan to something and let him try and implement it.

I should clarify this though and say it only makes sense in context of the constraints Bush has already placed on himself. It's self-evident that we need to set conditions of, and an expected date for, withdrawal. If the insurgent's attacks appear to be keeping us in the country, it'll sap their support among Iraqis so quick their skullcaps will spin. Thanks much to Bush, then, who has ruled this out. Let's hope he voted against it before he votes for it.

Early in Bush's first term, a friend of a friend had, through family connections, gotten a few minutes in the Oval Office with the guy. Bush, he said, was exactly as you'd expect. When he found that his guest was Californian, he leaned back in his chair and sighed, "You know, i just don't get that state. Everything I touch there turns to shit."

Dude, seeing surveillance photos of your kids at school is a pretty convincing rationale, if you ask me.