Gokul43201 said:
Since, in your opinion, I'm really only playing a game here, why do you expect an honest response to your question?
Russ, I'm getting weary of your personal jabs.
Well I'm weary of gamesmanship in here, Gokul. I feel like I'm being forced to combat it in way too many places in here and get irritated when people make veiled implications, don't explain them and force others to guess what they mean. The point mheslep made was very clear and you asked for a citation for a claim he didn't make and obliquily referenced a beef with the point but didn't explain it. That's gamesmanship. What I expect (and the forum rules require) is a straightforward response to a straightforward point: Ie, your post #78 should have been your post #9.
Anyway:
It's not, and it's almost exactly the point I was making, with a further refinement: if you have no evidence that he changed his mind (the citation I have been asking for), the only option that remains is that his plan failed (or more accurately, is anticipated to fail).
Both possibilities still exist and without the ability to see inside his head and without clear evidence, none of us are in any position to judge which it was. Obama has no obligation to tell us he changed his mind (in fact, it is often to a politician's benefit to do his best to hide it). This is not a 'if you can't prove he's guilty he must be innocent' situation. That's not an accusation of a flip-flop, just an analysis of the two possible options...which is why your request for citation is unreasonable/irrelevant.
Just speaking for myself here, but I don't really have an opinion on which is correct (or will become correct under the current path). Ultimately it doesn't even matter: he's a politician and will almost certainly do what benefits him most politically in responding or not responding to the issue. I'm just laying out the possibilities and analyzing the situation. So further development:
If the issue is pressed during the current election cycle (before the taxes actually go up)*, he has a pretty decent out: he can blame it on Congressional Republicans. But ultimately, Congressional Republicans can just hammer home the 'he said it wouldn't happen but it did' refrain and can take either tack and profit from it because neither are positive for Obama.
1. There's a huge difference between being unable to implement a plan due to Congressional opposition (or whatever other reason), and actually contradicting a campaign pledge.
Absolutely, but the difference is bigger if the sitting President has a Congress of the opposite party. Since he has a Democratic Congress, people will want him to explain why he couldn't get a Congress from his own party to implement a plan he wanted (or, at least, Republicans will needle him that it makes him look impotent).
2. The take home political message, as always, will be about where the blame lies for this failure. Just as easy a political move as it may be to play a clip of the pledge, it might completely backfire, as the counter-punch - that the failure to keep taxes down on lower income brackets was directly due to Republican opposition - might do more damage than the punch.
Since Congress is Democratic, I'd be surprised if the counterpunch carries that much weight and as I said before, it opens up two more avenues for counter-counterpunchs:
1. Why did you make an unkeepable promise?
2. How are you so powerless that you cannot get a Democratic Congress to do what you want?
But it is the tendency for politicians to go negative, so I suspect you're right that he'll go with that counterpunch if he feels the need to respond. Perhaps he can give republicans a negative on the issue while taking his double-negative. I think the strategy's flawed, but it seems like it's the way politicians like to go. (If an issue is twice as negative for you as for the other guy, I think it is better to downplay/ignore than respond.)
EDIT: I have meanwhile found that Obama did, in fact, willfully contradict the pledge. The Health Care bill imposes a tax on indoor tanning parlors, and of course there's the penalty (starting 2014) for violating the insurance coverage mandate. The former is an indisputable violation of the pledge, but affects such a small group of people that it might be a hard sell, politically, to use that as the centerpiece of an "Obama broke his promise" campaign ad. The latter could be argued either way, but I think it will be more effective (in an ad attacking Obama's promises) than anything else.
I'm not sure what "it" is, but I agree that the tanning parlor thing is not going to be politically useful. I really think most people understand/believe the promise was about income taxes.
*If/when the issue comes up for his re-election, he can reasonably blame Congress in general, but obviously cutting his own party off at the knee carries its own risks.
