WHO'S THE OBSTRUCTIONIST?

WaPo reports that Republican's are looking to pull back on social security privatization...for now. How to save face? Blame those pesky obstructionist Democrats:

President Bush has responded by dispensing his cautious calls for bipartisanship in favor of far tougher rhetoric that blames the Democrats for the stalemate. "On issue after issue, they stand for nothing except obstruction," Bush said at a GOP fundraiser Tuesday night. "And this is not leadership. It is the philosophy of the stop sign, the agenda of the roadblock."

How fitting that this Bushian rhetoric is delivered at a private gala fundraiser.

The reality, even Republican's are afraid to touch the third rail:

Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) has held 14 meetings with the panel's 11 Republicans to reach a consensus just on achieving solvency, he said, but they have yet to produce a deal. He has not even broached the idea of personal accounts, which he acknowledged to be the harder piece of the puzzle.

We know that Democrats are in practice no good at obstructing. The real problem is that Republicans can't even figure out there own plan to privatize Social Security without people thinking that the Republicans privatized Social Security.

Maybe that's why Americans by a 2-to-1 margin trust Democrats over the president to protect Social Security.

UPDATE: New poll out from NYT this morning:

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling Social Security?

Disapprove 62; Approve 25