Hmmmm. Now this is quite interesting to me within the following context: Jim Rutenberg's May 8 ruminations on Rove's campaign plans, the use of the drug plan is mentioned quite a bit (my highlighting):

.....In regular West Wing breakfast sessions catered by the White House mess, Mr. Rove and the White House political director, Sara Taylor, have already been reaching out to nervous and vulnerable Republicans, three at a time, laying out an emerging three-prong attack on Democrats over national security, taxes and health care.

In meetings at the White House, aboard Air Force One and in candidates' home states, Mr. Rove is trying to rally Republicans to stand by the president and his agenda.

He has focused in particular on uniting them behind the administration's proposals to overhaul immigration, which include guest worker provisions that conservatives despise; the Iraq war, which has driven Mr. Bush's poll numbers sharply downward; and the Medicare prescription drug program, which the administration says will cost $872 billion from 2006 to 2014 and which Mr. Bush backed enthusiastically despite complaints from conservatives that it was a vast expansion of the social welfare state.....

Now the president's approval ratings are half that. The war has cast a shadow over the rest of the administration's agenda, and Democrats say some of the accomplishments Mr. Rove wants to highlight, like the prescription drug benefit, have troubled histories that make them less than ideal centerpieces for a campaign. And Mr. Rove remains embroiled in the federal criminal investigation into the disclosure of a C.I.A. officer's identity.

But Republican and White House officials say that as the kinks subside the prescription drug plan will be a net positive for the party come November, just as Mr. Rove said that the passage of a sweeping overhaul of immigration law would please voters who wanted action from Washington....

So which is this Cato post? Conservatives just saying no to Rove/Bush OR conservatives trying to help out by making suggestions to make it more palatable, working out the "kinks" for November, as the article says? Is it more mutiny or actually assisting the commander? Whatever the answer, I am suspicious that they are posting on the topic at this time at the request of a "talking points" missive of some sort.

Wouldn't it be nice for our seniors if everyone got into it and really tried to make the plan work as well as possible? Paint me cynical on that, though. Everyone running from both parties is going to use this one, probably flip-flopping up to the last minute. And it's so complicated that it should be easy to flip-flop about.....