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Favoring the Bush plan is the fact that it is aimed primarily at the young. When you are just entering adulthood and beginning a career you tend not to find life too complicated because you haven't already made a thousand big decisions and lived with their repercussions. But I sometimes think of Ayn Rand's sister, who came from Russia to visit the celebrated author in New York. She walked into an American supermarket for the first time and was overwhelmed: too much choice, a thousand kinds of cereal, doesn't it all give you a headache? Rand was impatient; her sister came from the land of No Choice, and wasn't up to the battle. A young person of course would not be overwhelmed by options but revel in them. Still, if, as the president seemed to suggest throughout his speech, gray-haired baby boomers are calling all the shots in America, we'll see if the gray-haired ones really hunger for more decisions to make.

This is her attempt at political commentary. While she made a cute reference to Rand's sister, her point got lost. Is she supporting private accounts or dismissing them? Seems to be "calibrating" her answer.

The "reference" to Rand's sister made a point--namely, a lot of choices can overwhelm people, especially when they're used to no choice. They may not like it. Noonan is not, in that paragraph, aiming to "dismiss" or "support" private accounts. She's writing about how people will react to them.

Peggy is an aging ingenue of the worst kind and a hack. She damns the president with faint praise,slams the Inaugural speech,yet again ("MESSIANIC" and UNCLEAR and unfocused is what she thinks,and I use that word advisedly,it was),hit people her age as being too addled to be able to actually handle their own money better than the Social Security bureaucrats can,and talks down to those younger. It's all a left handed compliment here and an oh so girlish stab at trying to look God only know what,with the Rand anecdote there,and yet another foray into twee girlish insult with the little big man poke in the eye.