Rich Lowry’s Dec. 10 salvo fired at AARP, “AARP seeks to derail reform package,” is really just thin camouflage for the conservative attack on Social Security using one of their weapons of choice: generational warfare.

He piles up the same old, tired ammunition, especially the one about Democrats being the party of government giveaways (while Bush gives our kids a half-trillion dollar deficit built on tax-cut handouts to the rich). And if you’re having some trouble following the pea in the latest conservative shell game, you can be forgiven. Instead of talking about the Social Security issue directly, Lowry switches the channel to another GOP “reform”: the Medicare prescription drug bill and, with a flick of the hand, pretends that it was a success.

Ask your elderly neighbors about that one as they board the drug bus for Canada; you’ll probably get an earful. Having magically “reformed” Medicare for the benefit of the pharmaceutical industry, Bush and Lowry are determined not to leave Wall Street behind. Now they’re going to “reform” the supposedly broken Social Security system by shifting new money into the stock casino, raising the deficit further and transferring the risk of poor returns to those persecuted young investors, all the while promoting hatred and loathing for their greedy elders.

In their grand vision of the new disownership society, grandma gets thrown from the train. Divide and conquer is the rule. Don’t fall for it.

Ed Cundy, Paris