The Boston Globe's Nina J. Easton has an extremely interesting article today on the right wing's retreat from supporting President Bush's privatization scheme. She leads,

The Weekly Standard, an influential conservative magazine, this week published an "exit strategy" for the president's Social Security plan.

Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer says the White House plan for private accounts, the heart of his reforms, is on life support. Free-market activist Stephen Moore, who in January felt "the stars were aligned" for Congress to adopt private accounts, now says the "window has slammed shut."

Even Edward H. Crane, president of the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, and a chief architect of private accounts, said he thinks it will take another congressional election before President Bush has a realistic chance of enacting the centerpiece of his second-term agenda. "I don't see the momentum in Congress right now," he said.

If there's any momentum in the Social Security debate now, it's moving away from privatization. As much as the President and his cronies have tried to sell the American people on drastically cutting benefits in return for minimal investments, the fact is that the American people do not support gutting the program. The progressive community can see it. The centrist community can see it. Even the far right, as represented by Cato and The Weekly Standard, can see it. The real question is why the White House can't see it.