The Washington Post's Jim VandeHei gets the oppotunity to write an extremely interesting and important piece on the front page of the paper tomorrow morning. Too bad it's relegated to a Saturday. In "Bush Paints His Goals As 'Crises'", he writes thusly:

President Bush had great success in his first term by defining crises that demanded decisive responses. Now, as he begins a second term, Bush is returning to the same tactic to accomplish three longtime conservative goals.

Warning of the need for urgent action on his Social Security plan, Bush says the "crisis is now" for a system even the most pessimistic observers say will take in more in taxes than it pays out in benefits well into the next decade.

He calls the proliferation of medical liability lawsuits a "crisis in America" that can be fixed only by limiting a patient's right to sue for large damages. And Bush has repeatedly accused Senate Democrats of creating a "vacancy crisis" on the federal bench by refusing to confirm a small percentage of his judicial nominees.

This strategy helped Bush win support for the war in Iraq, tax cuts and education policies, as well as reclaim the White House. What is unclear is whether the same approach will work, given the battering to the administration's credibility over its Iraq claims and a new Democratic campaign accusing Bush of crying wolf.

This is exactly how Bush works: he drums up some made up crisis that must be fixes, and of course the only possible solution would be some radical policy the GOP has been forwarding for decades. It's great to see someone in the mainstream media reporting on this.

If you read one article this week, make it this piece by VandeHei. It's one of the truly "must-read" articles.