Enough Mr. Moderate, already. It didn’t help at all, at all.

Obama rejects the Republican Congress

Good news for geezers, many of whom – Fox News fans – won’t even realize that he’s the one on their side, and the Republicans are out to scuttle them.

The Big O rejects chained CPI, about which here is Roger Hickey.

The chained CPI was always a negotiating ploy - an offer by the White House to show Republicans (and their corporate backers) that Democrats were willing to ignore the real retirement crisis in America in order to validate the conservative claim that Social Security was somehow contributing to an overblown deficit crisis.

Social Security has its own funding stream and contributes not a penny to federal deficits.

But the chained CPI, which would have meant immediate and serious cuts to people on Social Security, was repeatedly offered as a way for the White House to prove they were so serious about deficit-cutting they were willing to harm one of the most vulnerable groups that Democrats profess to care about.

This new victory over the Pete Peterson-style austerity-mongers is only the latest battle in a long war.

And with each fight a stronger and stronger grassroots movement has been growing to protect - and expand - the very popular crown jewels of the New Deal and Great Society.

We turned President Clinton away from his dalliance with partial privatization of Social Security - and then we stopped George W. Bush dead in his tracks when he tried to make real privatization the centerpiece of his second term.

As we mobilized with facts about the crucial importance of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid in an era of recurring economic crises, the pro-social insurance movement grew - led by seniors and unions, the groups who got those programs passed in the first place.

But organizations representing women and African Americans and Hispanics reminded their constituencies how important Social Security is to their economic security.

And activist young people, now burdened by student loans and a lousy job market, came to realize the value of retirement and health care systems they could count on.

All which is Roger blowing his own horn.

The main thing is that by dumping this item, and in fact dumping useless attempts to entice Republican cooperation by playing the role of a conservative president to the point where the Republicans can pretend he is the enemy of seniors they are trying to protect, Obama increases the chance of Democrats holding the senate and getting stronger in the house.

That’s because the Republicans will have to openly oppose an agenda most of America will strongly approve.

That has to help.

Hickey, again, at Huffpo.

Now Democrats are free - in the run-up to the midterm congressional elections - to campaign as strong defenders of Social Security, Medicare (without means-testing) and Medicaid.

This liberation comes just in time because Republicans, opportunists that they are, have never been shy about accusing Democrats with trying to cut these programs.

The chained CPI proposal gave a ring of truth to Republican lies.

He’s over the top, a bit, since in fact on this matter both the White House and the Republicans were playing against those dependent on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

It’s just that, as you would expect, the Democrats were throughout the battle the lesser rather than the greater evil.

Dropping chained CPI makes them even more lesser.

So to speak.