By DAN K. THOMASSON, Scripps Howard News Service

It looks as though the Obama administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress are going to have to deal with Social Security and Medicare much sooner than they would have liked considering the estimates of accelerated decline in the trust funds for the huge programs. That's the way it looks, all right. But don't bet the farm on it happening.

Once again the president is finding out how tough it is to back up the promises made during the campaign, including his often-avowed intention of disclosing Bush-era mistreatment of prisoners, when the responsibility for doing that falls directly on him.

The pro-life forces seem determined to make President Obama's scheduled graduation address at the University of Notre Dame on Sunday as unpleasant an experience as possible and you can bet that if the Secret Service had its way it would bag the appearance.

The continuing hue and cry over the use of torture on suspected terrorists seems to have set a new standard for hypocrisy even in this town where it always has been considered an art form, practiced at the highest levels without a hint of shame.

Hold your breath and pray that down the road you will have one to hold.

With the expected departure in June of the most unlikely of Supreme Court justices in modern memory, the Senate is primed for one of those historic confirmation battles that have marred the process for more than four decades, ever since Associate Justice Abraham Fortas was denied elevation to the chief judgeship of the United States.

Everyone likes to win and Sen. Arlen Specter is no exception. The difference is that Specter's desire may do some real damage to the Republican Party and have broad implications for Americans generally.

It would be hard to measure the potential divisiveness of one of those full-blown, razzamatazz, in living color, months long Congressional inquiries into the past torture of terrorist suspects.

A funny thing has been happening to some of that widely heralded federal education money. It has fallen off the bus on the way to school.

Not so terribly long ago most everything bad seemed to be blamed on one of three things -- the press, the atomic bomb or sunspots. But that changed when someone discovered global warming, aided of course, by computers that spewed out the dire consequences as toxic as the greenhouse gasses the true believers saw as the major culprit.