As is fitting of someone who’s never been mistaken for a bright young thing himself, I take a dim view of the bright young things always being touted at places like the New Republic and the Atlantic Monthly (the latter which, nevertheless, I think may be the best magazine for politics of any of the general magazines).

Anyway, reading Noam Scheiber’s article in this week’s issue of The New Republic only confirms this prejudice of mine. He’s written an entire article bashing what he believes the White House is going to do with Social Security. Every contact the White House has had with Congressional Dems on the issue of Social Security becomes a scene of political theater in Scheiber's telling. It's one of those pieces that's so one-sided you can't imagine the author even believes it.

Not since Dana Milbank wrote a piece on the front page of the Washington Post, bashing the Bush-Cheney ticket for what he said would turn out to be one of the most negative campaigns ever, have I read anything this baseless, preemptive, and, well, petty. (Okay, that may not be true since the river of crap always runs high.) But, judging from the New Republic’s cover story on how the deficit issue is going to lead Dems out of the wilderness, I’m concluding that frantic wild-ass-guessing about what's really going on is going around the office over there like a bad bug.