"Save Social Security first."

That, you no doubt recall, was President Clinton's challenge to Congress to use the federal budget surplus, then about a guadzillion dollars, to bolster social security. His plan at the time was to use the surplus to create personal savings accounts on top of what workers and employers paid in to Social Security, as opposed to preznit Bush's plan to divert monies away from SS and into private accounts.

You would think, then, that Bush & Co. would consider Clinton's remarks toxic. After all, they remind us that Bush ignored Clinton's sage advice, and instead wiped out the surplus exactly as Clinton feared -- through tax cuts and new spending. Hell, it reminds us that we even had a surplus, something we won't see for a long, long time to come.

Yup, you'd think so. But that's why you aren't working in the White House right now!

With their push to restructure Social Security off to a rocky start, Bush administration officials have begun citing two Democrats -- former President Bill Clinton and the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- to bolster their claims that the retirement system is in crisis.

But the gambit carries some risk, Bush supporters say. Clinton's repeated calls during his second term to "save Social Security first" were specifically to thwart what President Bush ultimately did: cut taxes based on federal budget surplus projections. Likewise, internal Treasury Department documents indicate that Moynihan, a New York Democrat who was co-chairman of Bush's 2001 Social Security Commission, expressed misgivings about the president's push to partially privatize Social Security.

Just when you think the administration has plumbed the very depths of the sea of Mendaciousness, when you think they've reached the summit of Mount Hypocricy, this kakistocracy exceeds all expectations.