Some serious people with unquestioned bona fides on fiscal responsibility grasped at wispy tendrils of seriousness in the president’s remarks. He mentioned Social Security! He talked about tax reform! I hope they are right but fear they are deluding themselves.

Examine the president’s words, and you see nothing new or specific. It hardly constitutes bravery to call for a bipartisan Social Security fix that doesn’t slash benefits. At that level of generality, who would disagree?…

Administration officials insist that proffering more in the State of the Union would have been self-defeating. Negotiating in public does not work, this argument goes. Do corporate tax reform first and the larger overhaul will come more easily.

This would be more convincing if the president’s behind-the-scenes track record were more reassuring. Obama put little muscle behind the legislative effort to create a fiscal commission. Then, having established one by executive order, he did nothing to ensure its success, according to sources close to the process. The commission was tantalizingly close to getting the supermajority needed for congressional action – former Service Employees International Union president Andy Stern had promised to be the 14th vote, the sources said – but the administration did not lift a finger to help by lobbying other Democrats.