Democrats and liberal activists heaved a collective sigh of relief this morning when President Obama released a deficit cutting plan that did not include onerous benefit cuts to Medicare, and left Social Security out of the mix entirely.

But the paranoid among us might have picked up on a part of the president's remarks that cause a bit of unease. In his otherwise strong veto threat, he injected Medicare benefits.

And I will veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare but does not raise serious revenues by asking the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to pay their fair share.

That unease isn't relieved by this insight from the generally hooked-into-the-White-House Ezra Klein.

The first-best outcome is still striking a grand bargain with the Republicans, and it’s more likely to happen if the Republicans worry that Democrats have found a clear, popular message that might win them the election. The better Obama looks in the polls, the more interested Republicans will become in a compromise that takes some of the Democrats’ most potent attacks off the table. But the second-best outcome isn’t necessarily looking like the most reasonable guy in the room. It’s looking like the strongest leader in the room. That’s why Obama, somewhat unusually for him, attached a veto threat to his deficit plan: If the supercommittee sends him a package that cuts benefits for Medicare beneficiaries but leaves the rich untouched, he says he’ll kick the plan back to Congress. Rather than emphasizing his willingness to meet Boehner’s bottom lines, which was the communications strategy during the debt ceiling showdown, he’s emphasizing his unwillingness to bend on his bottom lines.

Does that mean the White House would be willing to have Democrats offer up Medicare benefits cuts in exchange for tax increases? Having the two concepts linked at all in these ongoing negotiations remains a problem, particularly since some Democrats have been signalling for months that they'd be willing to keep Medicare benefit cuts on the table.

That's with full knowledge that doing so would both neutralize the advantage Democrats gained in the disastrous Ryan budget plan for Medicare and play right into Republican hands on political strategy. Republicans have continued to attack what they say are Medicare cuts in the Affordable Care Act, and would more than double down on those attacks if any Medicare benefit cuts were negotiated by Democrats now.

Saner—or more politically savvy—heads in the White House prevailed for this round, and raising the eligibility age was left out of this proposal. It needs to stay out.