Tonight's presidential press conference represented the President's best effort yet to explain the need for social security reform -- and the voluntary private accounts he's proposed. As the President stated, it's time to let workers have the same kind of stake in their retirements that the rich -- and Congress -- enjoy.

I doubt that anything he said will change the radically obnoxious and deeply dishonest obstructionism on the part of congressional Democrats, but at least the President made his support for voluntary private accounts clear and once again invited the Democrats to participate in the discussion. By being open to suggestion and by presenting new ideas to solve tough problems, the President does a great deal to distinguish himself from the hidebound, do-nothing, cat-calling Dems.