The Post has a point.

Many argue, I’m among them, that we Democrats are our own worst enemies. We criticize the living hell out of the Weasel, but really don’t offer much in the way of alternatives. Today’s Washington Post makes the same argument about the Democrat’s response to the Weasel’s assault on Social Security. We just hate what he’s doing but we offer no alternative solutions. Here are some excerpts:

Bartleby Democrats
February 4, 2005, Washington Post Editorial

HERMAN MELVILLE'S "Bartleby, the Scrivener" tells the tale of a lawyer's assistant who inexplicably stops doing his job, instead spending his days staring blankly at a brick wall. "I'd prefer not to," he invariably tells his employer when asked to copy a paper, go to the post office or even answer a question. …

Unlike Bartleby, the Democrats' maddening passivity can be excused in part by the administration's maddening evasion of hard choices. The accounts proposed by the president would not, in themselves, extend the solvency of the Social Security system by a single day. Mr. Bush not only presented his private accounts to the country as risk-free, he made none of the tough calls about what should be done to achieve solvency.

… there are responsible ways, consistent with Democratic principles, to "fix" Social Security, but elected Democrats have tended to run from them as if they were leaking vials of anthrax. A plan by Democratic economists Peter Diamond and Peter Orszag features a thoughtfully calibrated combination of tax increases and benefit cuts -- meaning that no Democratic politician wants anything to do with it, even though the Diamond-Orszag plan would make the system more progressive and put it on a sustainable footing even beyond the traditional 75-year horizon.

… [Another plan] would help put Social Security on a stronger footing by imposing a 3 percent surtax on income over $200,000 -- though some benefit cuts would also be needed.

These may not be the right answers; they certainly would meet resistance from Republicans dead set against anything with a whiff of tax increase. The president is as wrong to take tax increases off the table as are Democrats who rule out any benefit cuts. But more constructive involvement on the part of the Democrats, and less Bartlebian disengagement, would be better not only for the party but for the country, too.

The Post is right. We have to stop saying just “hell no” and start saying “hell no” but here’s a better way.