I hate to be a spoilsport, just when it seems that Bush’s Social Security Destruction plan is fizzling.

But, if the Democrats aren’t careful, Bush and the Republicans will come out of this potential debacle smelling like roses.

Here’s what I mean.

Apparently, Bush has said that the supporters of private accounts have a six-week window of opportunity to turn around public opinion. This jibes with Mickey Kaus’ theory that Karl Rove wants either a win on this issue, or a quick failure that will not have an impact on the midterm elections next year. A theory I agree with.

BUT….

Even if the Democrats and their allies manage to skuttle the dreaded private accounts, Bush has set it up that major Social Security reforms such as increasing the retirement age or eliminating the income cap on FICA are now palatable alternatives. [In fact, Bush has already been hinting he’d support the latter.]

In a vacuum, both proposals were political death. But when compared to private accounts that destroy the fundamental soundness of the Social Security system, they seem like reasonable alternatives.

So here is what will likely happen. Bush will eventually abandon the private accounts idea, and embrace one of the aforementioned alternative “fixes” for Social Security. He will almost certainly get Democratic support for those fixes.

That, in turn, will give many Republicans who are in marginal districts or in Blue States political cover to “save” Social Security by endorsing and voting for, say, removing the income cap on FICA.

Then, VIOLA! — George W. Bush and the Republicans go into the 2006 midterms as the party that “saved Social Security!” Erasing for a generation the inherent advantage Democrats have had on the issue for decades.

To be sure, conservatives will fume. [And some are already getting desperate] But Bush doesn’t NEED conservative votes in Congress to win support for a Social Security Fix. He only needs moderate Republicans, and Democrats.

It would be similar to Bill Clinton’s passage of NAFTA in his first term. Get a few sympathetic Democrats on board, and rely upon Republicans for the votes to get the thing passed. Only in Bush’s case, it will be the reverse.

In fact, I predict that even a lot of conservatives will jump on the bandwagon once they realize that the proposal will pass. It will be popular, after all.

Naturally, Bush will be hailed as a political titan, and Rove a genius (again) for doing the politically impossible: fixing Social Security!

The whole thing will be portrayed as Bush’s plan from the beginning. And, who knows, it may well be. But whatever the truth of the matter, the Democrats are about to get screwed.

And here’s the worst part. There isn’t much the Democrats can do to stave off this outcome. If they go along with Bush to fix Social Security, they will simply be following his lead, and will get no credit for it.

If they fight it, they will be hammered by the President and Republicans as obstructionists who only opposed fixing Social Security for partisan political reasons. Which, incidentally, will be true.

The only hope the Democrats have is that Bush really is stupid enough to try and force private accounts through. He may be, but Karl Rove isn’t. So, I suspect that private accounts are dead, dead, dead. But so are the Democrats about to be.