Social Security is in danger. We must take preventive action: Baathist dead-enders have targeted the Social Security lockbox with Saddam’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. Our only hope is to adopt private accounts so the trust fund can be spread to multiple locations, before the smoking gun turns out to be a mushroom cloud.

Sound silly? No sillier than the Administration’s full-court press to scare the retirement checks out of seniors’ hands. A propaganda push so vile, it’s a wonder Armstrong Williams isn’t part of it. (But Dick Cheney is.)

Americans need to take a deep breath and repeat: There is no crisis in Social Security. There is no crisis in Social Security. Feel better? If absolutely no reforms are made, Social Security will not start running out of money until 2042! That’s four decades away, and that is the pessimistic scenario. According to the optimistic projections, the danger of doing nothing is…nothing.

We’ve been down this road before, and we all know the result. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.