As synonyms for the word "vile," my thesaurus offers some of the following: offensive, objectionable, odious, repulsive, repellent, repugnant, revolting, disgusting, sickening, loathsome, foul, nasty, contemptible, despicable and noxious.
Any of those words would aptly describe the advertising attack launched last week against AARP, the largest advocacy group for seniors, by the conservative interest group USA Next. But there's one word that unfortunately can't be applied: surprising.
The salvo against AARP crystallizes trends developing both in the debate over Social Security and more broadly in the competition between the parties in Washington. On both fronts, the news isn't good.
USA Next, which envisions itself as the conservative alternative to AARP, previously made its biggest splash by using drug company money to help fund an ad blitz promoting the Medicare prescription drug plan backed by President Bush and the pharmaceutical industry. That led critics to accuse the organization of operating as a front group for the drug makers.
Last week, USA Next announced it would spend $10 million on an ad campaign attacking AARP over its opposition to Bush's proposal to create private investment accounts funded by the Social Security payroll tax. USA Next opened the campaign with an Internet-only ad that uses logic so contorted it verges on parody to accuse AARP of opposing the military and supporting gay marriage.
Charlie Jarvis, USA Next's chairman and a former aide to President Reagan and religious conservative powerhouse James Dobson, promised that was just the start for AARP. "They are the boulder in the middle of the highway to personal savings accounts," Jarvis told the New York Times. "We will be the dynamite that removes them."
In 50 years, historians may study that quote to understand why Washington now feels so much like Beirut.
AARP represents 35 million seniors. Like any lobbying group, it sometimes slights the national interest while pursuing its members' interests. And it is emerging as a major obstacle on Capitol Hill for Bush's proposal to carve out investment accounts from the payroll tax.
But the organization has never ruled out supporting individual investment accounts as an addition to Social Security. And in a recent speech, its chief executive, William Novelli, left open the door to "possibly adjusting benefits" -- which means cutting them -- in an overall reform package.
