So why does Pelosi begin the education of her freshman members with a seminar on Rubinomics? Robert Rubin, the Citigroup executive and former Treasury secretary, will appear solo next week before the party caucus to explain the economy. Pelosi has scheduled another caucus briefing on Iraq, but that includes five expert voices of varying viewpoints. Rubin gets the stage to himself.

When labor officials heard about this, they asked to be included since they have very different ideas about what Democrats need to do in behalf of struggling workers and middle-class families. Pelosi decided against it. This session, her spokesman explains, is only about "fiscal responsibility," not globalization and trade not the deterioration of wages and disappearing jobs. Yet those subjects are sure to come up for discussion. Rubin gets to preach his "free trade" dogma with no one present to rebut his facts and theories.

Democratic hawks said yesterday that their party can win a war of ideas with the Republicans over national security, but only if Democrats move beyond simply criticizing President Bush's policies and convince voters they support strategies to defeat Islamic jihadists.

These centrist Democrats argued that voters are more receptive to the Democrats because of Bush's mistakes in Iraq. But they warned against calls to launch investigations into past administration decisions if Democrats gain control of the House or Senate in the November elections. Instead, they said, Democrats should concentrate on charting alternative policies for fighting terrorism and succeeding in Iraq.

..."Bayh and others spoke at the launch of a collection of essays on national security policy published by the Progressive Policy Institute, the think tank associated with the Democratic Leadership Council. The sponsors challenged Democrats to resist policies advocated by what they called the "non-interventionist left" wing of their party while vigorously challenging what they call the "neo-imperial right" viewpoint of many in the Bush administration.

It's come to this: The chief project to restate Democratic economics for our time was unveiled a couple of weeks ago, and it's named after the father of American conservatism, Alexander Hamilton. Necessarily, the authors of the Hamilton Project preface their declaration with an attempt, not altogether successful, to reclaim Hamilton from the right. The nation's first secretary of the Treasury, they note, "stood for sound fiscal policy, believed that broad-based opportunity for advancement would drive American economic growth, and recognized that 'prudent aids and encouragements on the part of government' are necessary to enhance and guide market forces."

...."But Hamilton also feared the common people, dismissed their capacity for self-government and supported rule by elites instead.

That might be enough to deter most Democrats from naming their firstborn economic revitalization scheme after him, but the authors of the Hamilton Project are made of sterner stuff. They include Peter Orszag, an estimable Brookings Institution economist; investment banker Roger Altman, formerly of the Clinton Treasury department; and, chiefly, former Treasury secretary and current Citigroup executive committee Chairman Robert Rubin, whose iconic status within the Democratic mainstream has waxed as the median incomes of Americans under the Bush presidency have waned. Rubin has also become a seal of good housekeeping for Democratic candidates seeking money from Wall Street. When Bob Rubin talks, Democratic pols don't just listen; they scramble for front-row seats and make a show of taking notes."

Unfortunately, some of Hamilton's disdain for democracy seeps into their statement as well. The problem of "entitlement imbalances is so large," they fret, "that the regular political process seems unlikely to produce a solution," so they recommend a bipartisan "special process" insulated from popular pressures. They also place such traditional Republican boogeymen as teachers unions on the list of problems that need to be solved. On the other hand, their list of national problems includes nothing about a corporate and financial culture that richly and reflexively rewards executives who offshore work to cheaper climes and deny their American employees the right to join unions.

The age for qualifying for Social Security benefits may need to be raised to reflect longer American life spans, Sens. Thomas R. Carper D-Del., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said at a meeting yesterday on the federal budget. When Social Security was created in 1935, a 65-year-old could expect to live another 12.5 years. Today’s 65-year-olds often have another 17.5 years left, according to Social Security’s Web site. Some Americans will go on for years way beyond that projection, said Graham, whose predecessor, Strom Thurmond, died in 2003 at 100.

“Everybody’s living like a senator . . . forever,” Graham said at a meeting on the U.S. fiscal crisis, sponsored by the nonprofit policy groups, including the conservative Heritage Foundation, and liberal Progressive Policy Institute. “That’s good news.”