BUSH IS SUBTLER THAN I THOUGHT: Vik Rubenfeld notes that the “Syrian Accountability Act” that Bush invoked during the State of the Union speech was originally introduced by Barbara Boxer, back when she was taking a somewhat more hawkish line.

UPDATE: Another blast from the past: Harry Reid used to support Social Security reform: “Most of us have no problem with taking a small amount of the Social Security proceeds and putting it into the private sector.”

Interestingly, so did FDR: “In a written statement to Congress in 1935, Roosevelt said that any Social Security plans should include, ‘Voluntary contributory annuities, by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age,’ adding that government funding, ‘ought to ultimately be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.'”

Now that’s a real blast from the past. Is it “ultimately” yet?

ANOTHER UPDATE: It looks as if FDR was talking about a different portion of the Social Security plan. This would have involved, essentially, a sort of government-supplied 401k plan.