Thank you, Greg Walden, for saving the Democratic Party from itself

As Joan McCarter wrote earlier, Rep. Greg Walden, the head of the House GOP's campaign committee, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that President Obama's budget represents "a shocking attack on seniors." Blitzer then asked:

BLITZER: What's so shocking about changing that CPI, that consumer price index the way that you would determine how much inflation would go ahead with increases for Social Security recipients, for example?

And Walden responded:

WALDEN: Well, once again, you're trying to balance this budget on the backs of seniors and I just think it's not the right way to go.

That's cynical as hell coming from the guy whose party has been demanding entitlement cuts, but I'm still thankful he said it, because by saying it, Walden made it crystal clear that congressional Democrats need to buck Obama on Social Security cuts. If they don't, their problems won't just be on the left, they'll also be on the right, because the GOP won't think twice about attacking them.

If Greg Walden were a little more clever, he would have kept his mouth shut today. Fortunately, he didn't. And his warning comes with plenty of time. We're still nearly two years away from the 2014 election and there has yet to be a single vote on the president's budget. And if congressional Democrats are paying any attention at all to what Walden said, it means his premature attack will have accomplished what President Obama couldn't: making sure the Democratic Party stands up for Social Security and the people who depend on it.