As we've noted now several times, actual membership in the Fainthearted Faction requires that you be a sitting member of the House or Senate. But charter membership is available to all active political figures.

Like the Governor of Pennsylvania, Ed Rendell for instance.

Gov. Rendell went on Hardball on the 29th, when Andrea Mitchell was subbing for Chris Matthews. And when she asked him about Social Security and his advice to President Bush, here's what he said ...

If you`re looking at Social Security, there, there's got to be room to compromise. The work that Senator Breaux did and Senator Kerrey did with some of the moderate Republicans really is a road map for us to solve Social Security. And maybe we do what the president wants to do, private savings accounts as a pilot program and see where it goes, something that is more fundable and doesn't run up the national debt.

In the words of the great Rodney King: <$Ad$>"Can't we all just get along?"

Please.

And people wonder why Dems are always getting rolled?

Senators Breaux and Kerrey, of course, were both supporters of a private-accounts-based Social Security phase-out and Gov. Rendell thinks their work is a good "road map"? No wonder he's so happy to sign on with the Bush plan.

And a pilot program of private accounts?

That's great. A short-term trial of long-term investing. That's got to be up there with prim-and-proper orgasms and nouvelle cuisine burritos as ideas that just blow the lid off the ridiculometer.

Why is the Governor of Pennsylvania in the Fainthearted Faction? As far as I know, President Bush doesn't even have a brother in the state who could run against him.