The Times is Trying to Make You Stupid

The New York Times has a story tonight "explaining" Bush's proposal. It aggressively tries to make you stupid, beginning with the very headline:

"Proposing Private Accounts in Addition to the Safety Net"

BUZZZ! Wrong again, New York Times! What we're discussing here is private accounts instead of a safety net. Thanks for playing, though.

It keeps up the stupidity campaign in the fifth paragraph down, when it discusses the cost of the program: "It will also involve the extent to which guaranteed benefits would be reduced and the cost of moving to a system of personal accounts - more than $700 billion in the next decade and trillions afterward."

BUZZZ! Wrong again, New York Times! Lower in the story, you try to explain this assertion, I think, saying:

"A senior administration official put the cost from 2009 through 2015 at $754 billion - $664 billion to pay benefits and $90 billion for interest on the money borrowed."

Is that where the "more than $700 billion in the next decade" assertion came from? Do you think it might have been worth mentioning that that figure came from the White House? Also, you'll notice that "2009 through 2015" is not a decade. I know you're trying to put a total figure on the costs that will be incurred between 2005 and 2015, but what's the point of that? What's operative here is what costs are incurred during the first decade of the program. Wouldn't it have been more meaningful to talk about those costs? Or did "in the next decade" just roll better off the tongue?

Updated to add: OK, I'm starting to get it: The gradual phasing-in -- the "fiscally responsible" thing Dubya was talking about tonight -- is what makes the cost in 2005-2015 lower, at $700 billion-plus, rather than the $1 trillion usually cited. My reaction, though, is still: so what? How does this really help, aside from delaying less than 30% of the pain until a few years later? The cost will still need to be incurred.

Also, get a load of that picture they're using. You half expect to see a Bible or a hymnal beneath those admonishing hands. Once again, the Bush-as-pastor theme is promulgated. Fitting: we are indeed sinners in the hands of an angry God, with madmen in power and fuckwits for watchdogs.