Good Article

If Hal Crowther is my favorite columnist, Matt Taibbi is my favorite reporter. You may not be interested in the entirety of this blog post (which takes off from an earlier article in Rolling Stone), but let me call your attention to the three paragraph summary, about a quarter of the way down the page, that explains why it's a lie to say Social Security is a cause of current government deficits. It starts with the line "Let's be clear about what's going on here." For some reason, most media types refuse to call politicians on the blatant canard that Social Security is a drain on resources, which creates a sense of distrust on the part of the broader population in what is, on its own terms, a perfectly viable program. At least Taibbi steps up and tells the truth, and that's what I like about him. He's the closest thing we've got these days to Lincoln Steffens, the muckraking legend of the early twentieth century, and I for one hope he keeps that independence and commitment to truth over ideology, because we really need that now.