Willie Sutton on Taxes

Review & Outlook: Where the Tax Money Is - WSJ.com

BO and the Democrats like to lie a lot. If they want to pay for all of their vote buying attempts, the people that make from $50K - $500K are going to carry the freight, especially those that make from $100-$200K.

War is now Civil

War on the Weak - Newsweek:

This article is an orgy of misdirection. For one thing, we resurrect an old bogeyman of the left; Ayn Rand. It is always amazing to me after exposure to a constant stream of leftist thinking from grammer school through college, how completely threatening the left finds the fact that some people read one chain smoking dead megalomaniac semi-libertarian. I suspect that book burning would be one of their favorite hobbies if they could get just a bit more control.

Is the thinking of the left so fragile that rather than talk of specific policies, we need to open with a character assassination because somebody has read a book??? One would think that BO's paean to anti-white racism, tribalism, weird ties to old ancestors, soil attachment, drugs and various discredited leftists; "Dreams from my Father", would be more dangerous to read than Ayn -- let alone having it be written by the president!!

Remember Congresswoman Giffords? Shot in the head due to the uncivil rhetoric of Sarah Palin and other Tea Party wackos if you are a Democrat or MSM sheep. BO used the term "an assault on unions" to describe WI Governor Walker's attempt to balance the WI budget. I've renamed my M4 Bushmaster .223 to a "Civil Rifle" in BO's honor!  It really makes more sense -- it is far more likely to be used in defense of my family or the liberty of all than in anything like an "assault".

Here we see "War" used to describe a budget. Is the term "war" now not a "warlike metaphor"??? Isn't this exactly the kind of overheated rhetoric that was so dangerous as recently as January?? Oh wait, that only applies to Republicans -- rhetoric, nasty signs, death threats and vandalism are all "just politics" when they come from the left.

Aside from attempts to tell us how to think, the biggest difference here can be summed up by what your worldview is. If you believe that resources are close to infinite, no matter what the level of debt or deficit is, and "balance" is simply a matter of loading more on the folks that already pay 90% of the total tax bill, then by all means -- spend away. For the most needy, the might be needy, or even the not needy at all, but likely to vote for your party.

If you on the other hand believe that resources are finite, and saving some safety for the most needy even if that means encouraging the close to needy to work, and the not needy at all to just take care of themselves, then you might want to look a the Ryan proposal with something other than an 80% ad hominem attack on his reading history as a reason for rejecting it!

Attacking the man is always easier than making a real argument.

Paying For BO

Phil Gramm: The Obama Growth Discount - WSJ.com

If somebody hadn't screwed up the recovery, history tells us we would be way better off by now. BO and the Democrats actually looked at the tea leaves in spring '09 and felt that the economy would move into growth with no extra spending -- they just decided to shower their cronies with a Trillion in extra spending primarily as a political payback, and with idea that "it can't do anything but help".

Most folks discover drunken disaster and hangovers in young adulthood -- apparently BO is still of the "if some is good, more is better"philosophy.

If we had matched the 1982 recovery rate, today annual per-capita income would be $4,154 higher than before the recession—that's an extra $16,600 for a family of four—and some 15.7 million more Americans would have jobs. That's enough jobs to employ 100% of the 13.5 million Americans currently classified as unemployed. In addition, we would have provided jobs for 30% of both the 2.4 million discouraged or marginally attached workers and the 4.8 million who have totally dropped out of the work force since January 2008.

Dayton Targets Job Creators in MN

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/02/16/wisconsin-unions/

Here we have a mild contrast in press treatment. Mark Dayton in MN has proposed taxes which would make MN the most "wealth unfriendly" state in the US, yet I've yet to hear that called "anti-wealth", or "anti-jobs" in the MSM. In fact, most all the news outlets of an MSM ilk, and especially "unbiased" MPR that draws deeply from the public teat finds it to be a generally positive idea.

Somehow, not so the idea that folks drawing salaries at the public expense, unsurprisingly major supporters of Democrats, government spending in general, higher taxes, and public largesse in most forms taking any sort of a cut at all.

Thousands of teachers, prison guards and students descended on the Wisconsin Capitol for a second day Wednesday to fight a move to take union rights away from government workers in the state that first granted them more than a half-century ago.

"fight a move to take union rights away". Huh? Can we just have "fight a move to steal more private property from wealthy Minnesotans"??? for the opponents of Dayton's tax plan??  Apparently what Dayton and the Democrats propose is ALWAYS about "the budget", if not "the children", or "the most vulnerable"??? I'm CERTAIN they would NEVER just target some group that doesn't tend to vote for them!!

Apparently, Walker and the Republicans just went out to "take union rights away" for no reason other than the standard Republican meanness of heart. Meanwhile, Dayton and Democrats in MN are working to try to improve "fairness", get "appropriate revenues from those most able to pay", etc, etc.

Could we just have the merest glimmer of an attempt to use similar rhetoric for similar things since we are spending public dollars to get this supposed "no slant, no rant" version of the news???

Never Smile At A Crocodile

Budget good will: Vanished without a trace - CNN.com:

As I said in December http://bilber99.blogspot.com/2010/12/why-bipartisanship-is-stupid-for.html, Republicans just plain can't get over stupid!! They give in to BO over a supposed measly $38 Billion in cuts that is in fact less than a billion, so they take all the abuse for cutting without any actual results. One top of that, BO comes out and does a macho campaign speech BEFORE they even vote on it, and the rubes STILL vote it through. Stupid is as stupid does.

Now, I understand that if they had stood up like humans rather than mice and said "hey buster, you want to make a deal that is supposed to be "bi-partisan" and then come out and piss on our tennies before we even vote on it? Sorry, NO DEAL!!! Roll that in your cigarette and smoke it!!!"

Nope, Republicans let BO arrive late to the game, run roughshod over them so the Dems win again, and America loses. I'm starting to think I'm completely stupid for not accepting that this is just plain HOPELESS!!!

The Budget is Least of Our Problems

RealClearPolitics - 'Coming Apart at the Seams'

Sadly, the accelerating leftward slide of America that dominated the 20th century has left us morally as well as economically bankrupt.

These trends mean, just as it is suffering economically, the working class is getting cut off from the richest sources of social capital: marriage, two-parent families, and church-going. More people are falling into a lower class characterized by men who can't make a minimal living and single women with children. Murray argues that America can maintain its national power even if these trends continue. With a growing lower class "increasingly unsuited for citizenry in a free society," though, it will no longer be the country we once knew.

Marriage, Family, Church, Community, Thrift, Delayed Gratification, Personal Responsibility, Maturity, a sense of culture in history (American Exceptionalism), ability to support factually and argue positions with civility .... the list is endless. All squandered without very much of a fight at over decades of statist/leftist/progressive attack.

The CAUSES of American decline are these, and have NOTHING to do with "global competition" or "concentration of wealth". Those bogymen are just excuses from the left for the destruction they have created. Blacks in this country were in better shape in every way -- economically, crime rate, divorce rate, illegitimate birth rate, church attendance, etc, etc BEFORE the mid '60s. Then the "great society" took hold with government replacing god, dad, and personal responsibility, and the black culture fell.

Government is a racially blind destroyer. The destruction of the white American culture is now WELL under way as this article shows. Remove religion as a source of morality (and in fact, make it a sign of "bigotry" as in "gay rights"), encourage children out of wedlock and in single families, promote dependency or the federal government for every phase of life ... creating the idea that being responsible for yourself isn't even a reasonable goal. All of life supposedly requires government involvement. 

and so we reap.

NYTimes Mythology

Budget Battles - Tax and Spending Myths and Realities - NYTimes.com

The NYTimes is expert on mythology. In this particular version, the KEY myth to keep in mind is that the budget is done by the president. In case you are recently returned from another dimension, the last couple of weeks ought to have that firmly in any mind that operates in this universe, but we can see that the Times is exempt from that designation.

Let's start at the top:

Here are two numbers to keep in mind when thinking about the House Republicans’ budget plan: They want to cut spending on government programs over the next decade by $4.3 trillion. And they want to cut tax revenues over the same period by $4.2 trillion.

Actually, the Republicans don't plan to cut ANY government programs over the next decade. They just aim to grow them a lot less rapidly than the Democrats. To claim they want to cut tax REVENUES is just completely stupid -- they want to cut tax RATES and INCREASE tax revenues. ALL the budget assumptions from BOTH sides make assumptions and projections about GROWTH. The fundamental disagreement is about "where does growth come from"? Democrats believe that taxes are a magic form of expense (to the people paying them) that will not affect behavior. While giving people benefits modifies their behavior to vote for those they see as providing the benefit, or increasing the minium wage encourages people to work, and more money given to teachers gives both votes for Democrats and causes the teachers to teach better, taxes are the ONE exception -- no matter how much you raise them, nobody is affected to try to avoid them. Taxes are the magic elixir of Democrats! (well, taxes, union campaign contributions and abortion).

We’ve seen this play before. President Ronald Reagan promised that tax cuts would spur more economic growth and pay for themselves. During his tenure, the deficit hit what was then a peacetime high of 6 percent of gross domestic product, and he eventually decided that he had no other alternative but to raise taxes to try to close the gap.

Remember who controls the budget. Democrats were firmly entrenched in the house from '55 - '95. Anyone that knows enough to ignore the three-card Monty of the Dems and the MSM realizes that "blaming the president" is just done to confuse the rubes. Revenues DID rise under Reagan as he had predicted -- but the Democrats made sure that SPENDING rose even faster. Even crazier,  the "bi-partisan FICA agreement" was a goose that dumped golden eggs on the floor from the early '80s until the early '00s ... one of the reasons for the trouble in the '00s is that the cozy double Ponzi on top of the granddaddy of ponzi schemes (Social Security) of stealing FICA money from BOTH the elderly and the young at the same time is running out. Even scams that are "too big to fail" ala Madoff, have to come to an end. The 900lb invisible gorilla (to the NYT) in this whole discussion is the fantasy of FICA / medicare. 

The Clinton years disproved the notion that higher taxes would inevitably stifle economic growth, or cost politicians their jobs. Taxes were raised in 1993, including higher income tax rates on the wealthiest. The economy was strong, and the stock market surged. Taxes were then cut in 1997 in a deal with the Republican-controlled Congress, but by then the combination of higher tax rates on the wealthy, a strong economy and a rising stock market was boosting revenues significantly.

"The economy was strong, and the stock market surged". Well, no more than the housing market "surged" under Bush. The stock market "bubbled", and it crashed in '00, and Bush came into office in a recession that double dipped on 9/11/2001 -- a small factor that the NYTs seems to have missed, even though given they are in the same city as Wall Street and the now absent WTC, one would think that at least that much of reality would have seeped into their lefty skulls. I guess the Clinton years proved that higher taxes don't inevitably stifle a stock market bubble in the same way that the Bush years proved that lower taxes and a housing bubble don't automatically provide a surplus. From where we are now though, the $167 Billion deficit in '07 that is 10% of what BOs deficits are running makes one wistful for those "failed Bush policies". 

President George W. Bush and Congress undid that progress with $1.65 trillion in tax cuts, heavily skewed to high earners. The economic recovery of the Bush years was extraordinarily weak by historical standards. By early 2009, shortly before Mr. Obama took office, the Congressional Budget Office projected a budget deficit for that year of more than $1 trillion.

One has to be solidly in the left camp to think that "progress" is $1,65 Trillion in extra taxes over a 10 year period. BO and the Democrats must agree, because they haven't raised those taxes even now. One gasps just a bit to think that after 8 years of the illustrious Clinton, we needed a "recovery", but of course those are the facts, plus 9/11/2001. Were that to have happened on a Democrats watch, it would be the excuse to end all excuses -- no level of spending, no level of economic depth would be too much to escape the all-purpose coverage of the 9-11 excuse. 


"heavily skewed to high earners" ... the people over $250K that pay 95% of taxes got 25% of the relief,  the people under $250K that pay 5% of the tax got 75% of the relief.  How is that "skewed"? If you pay over $50K a year in income taxes, your personal amount of tax relief was higher than that for folks that paid $1k. Get it? To a Democrat, that isn't "fair". 


So did we have any elections in '06? Did anything change? Oh, wait -- Congress DID manage to get a budget through in both '07 and '08. What kind of congress was it??? Hmm, a DEMOCRAT Congress. True, Bush signed the budgets, but one would have to agree that he was the lamest of lame ducks by then and in '08, does one REALLY think it was going to help anything to shut down the government to negotiate with Nancy and Harry about lower spending? 


So we don't quote the $167 Billion Deficit in '07 -- Republican President, Republican Congress created. We wait for the '09!!!! budget -- both houses Democrat creating and passing, Bush signing as a lame duck in a bad economy in an election year. Yea, the Democrats and the MSM know all about "fairness" ... not to mention propaganda! 

Budgets, Deficits and Blame

CORRECTED-U.S. fiscal 2007 budget deficit falls to $163 bln | Reuters

Bush/Republicans actual 2007 deficit was $163 Billion. When Democrats run on "change", you can REALLY believe it!

As I'm sure some Democrats and MSM folks are noticing now, the budget of the US Government is the responsibility of CONGRESS, meaning that it has to pass THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES!!! It is true that the President ultimately SIGNS the budget, but the way the MSM works in this country, that has some special meaning:

When a Republican is President, as in Bush 1, and the Congress is Democrat, when President fails to sign a budget and the government shuts down, it is HIS FAULT!! (see 1990 shutdown).

When a Democrat is President, as in Clinton, and the congress is Republican, when the President fails to sign the budget and the government shuts down it is CONGRESS'S FAULT!! (see 1995 shutdown)

So a couple minor points:

1). '07 was really the last Republican budget. While Bush was there in '08, he was the lamest of lame ducks with Nancy and Harry proudly in charge of our nations budget., Bush's only choice would have been to "cause a government shutdown" on top of the explosion of 30 years of Democrat bad loans through Fannie and Freddie killing the markets. Thanks Nancy and Harry! With a belated tip o' the hat to Jimmuh Carter, whose folks thought up the entire brilliant idea of sub-prime mortgages. Where would this country be without Democrats?

2). Stay tuned for the potential of a shutdown, the rules are it will be the "Republican's fault" ... meaning Congress this time. I've leave it to you to figure out WHY that is the rule.

P2P vs WTF

Paul Ryan: The GOP Path to Prosperity - WSJ.com

BO is on the "Winning The Future" (WTF) plan, this article gives a snapshot of the "Path to Prosperity" the chart ought to be etched in every Americans brain.

From Moose Tracks

Budget Suicide

RealClearPolitics - Big Government on the Brink

A little optimistic, but worth the read. The bottom line problem is that VERY few people realize that "The Pig(federal gov) is Dead". They keep talking about "this and that won't work, something HAS to be done". Have none of these people ever seen a loved one die?? It seems "unthinkable" -- we will just need to do this ... or that, or why can't they do THIS, or, or ... . And then it is over, they are gone. You are still here, the world goes on, but it isn't the same world -- what you thought could not possibly happen has happened, and you are sadder but maybe wiser.

We took a wrong turn in '06. The sign said "Dead End" very clearly, but we pushed the accelerator to the floor. We went by a sign in '08 that said "Danger, STOP !! High Cliff Ahead!!!" ... we took a strong swig of whiskey and pushed on the gas even harder. As the darkness falling away into the abyss started to enter our awareness in '10, we hired some folks willing to turn on the headlights. But most folks seem to have just decided to shut their eyes when it comes to painful realities.

We don't HAVE to have our loved ones alive. So surprise -- there is no "law of nature" that we HAVE to have Social Security, Medicare, Defense, a job, any assets, shelter, clothing, enough to eat, etc. **ALL** of those things have to be EARNED!!! If not by us now, then by SOMEONE -- either "wealthier", or from past generations wealth that was saved, or from future generations wealth being borrowed, or by conquest of other nations wealth ... it all comes from somewhere.

So when folks say things like "Paul Ryan's plan won't work because someone will HAVE to do xxx, to cover yyyy", or "Republicans thought that idea X was good in 1970, or 2003, or whenever, but now they seem to have changed their minds, there is a failure to understand the effects of time. Microsoft was a superb stock to buy in 1985 ... it may still be fine now, but it is very unlikely that it is as good now as then. Fixing FICA and helping the economy by doing some sorts of privatization or incentives in even '03 may well have been very helpful, but we missed that opportunity. We have a lot less flexibility now. Ditto with a lot of good ideas on healthcare, if some of the best advice had been followed EARLIER, when the problems were not so deep and the time frame longer. Sadly, the same is still the case -- we are like a drinker that has continued to drink and now the liver is dead. Quitting earlier would have been A LOT less painful -- in fact, maybe we are too late to avoid death.

In any case, the solutions to a system that anyone that wanted to look could see was unsustainable decades ago are FAR more painful now than they were even a few years ago. Why? Because when you are in the final stages of liver disease and you decide that the right answer is to go on a multi-month bender, the end can come very very quickly. That is the course we chose in '06, and accelerated in '08, and now we don't like the pain that is required to have even the very smallest of chances of even a very damaged recovery.

There is always an alternative, it is just that in the final analysis it is always death.

BO's Sorry Now

The Associated Press: WH: Obama regrets vote against raising debt limit

Being a Democrat means that "mistakes" are free. Oh yes, the MSM "reports it", but they don't make it an obsession --- "Dan Quayle ... misspelled potato". George Bush -- "Mission Accomplished, No WMD found, HUGE deficits". Has BO had any deficits yet?

Here is what the guy that was such a great perspecitve president that he made Chis Matthews leg shiver had to say on the subhject of raising the debt ceiling back in '06:

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. ... Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem."

So do we have ANY nice headlines like "Obama Said Raising Debt Ceiling Failure of Leadership" ??? Why not? Did Americans quit liking sensational "Gotcha journalism"? Did our media decide that the president needed to be supported when there was an "important military operation under way"?? (Libya).

Could it be that they are just biases and they really get no enjoyment whatsoever in making BO's job more difficult -- something that they enjoyed IMMENSELY when W was in office? Nah, just listen to NPR, they are completely unbiased!!! They say it themselves, so it must be true!

Is there just a SMIDGE of a chance that BO was completely clueless then and he is completely clueless now???

 

Caring Enough to Write a Bad Check

Paul Ryan Says Democrats Flee 'Adult Conversation' on Budget - HUMAN EVENTS

I'm really concerned about seniors and children, that is why I ought to care enough to write bad checks for both on the kids future checkbooks. One has to ether be a Democrat or an MSM reporter to see that as "caring". But wait, that is not enough -- I need to denigrate those who are trying to make reforms to allow the most vulnerable to actually have a safety net, and while they are doing it on the backs of those that HAVE saved and are able to shoulder more responsibility for their own future retirement by pushing for means testing! The left is denigrating Ryan for working to lead people that are largely in his own voting block -- those who HAVE saved, worked longer, selected a job with a pension, etc so they CAN survive without their whole FICA payment. That still isn't good enough for the left -- they would rather destroy the whole system than admit that what they created is unsustainable, even though it most clearly is.

Why can this country not make progress? I see it as pretty simple:

• Everyone has an ideology, it is just that one side doesn't realize it. How can a human with a brain stand up and say "Republicans are holding the budget hostage for ideological reasons by trying to cut abortion funding in the budget"! Huh? If you have no ideology, then simply allow the cuts!!!!! BOTH SIDES, and even those that claim to have "no sides" have an ideology. We all do, it is called being human. Our MSM and the Democrats REGULARLY stand up and make as much sense as Clevon Little does in "Blazing Saddles", when facing the lynch mob, pulls out is own gun, points at his head and says "Nobody move or the N**R gets it!!!". Only thing is that our current situation isn't funny.
  
• Our "sense of history" is now reduced to less than a year. Why are we facing a "budget crisis"? Because BO, Nancy and Harry with large majorities in both houses didn't pass a budget for Sept 10 - Sept 11!!! Our MSM is so bad that only the relatively few that REALLY keep up with a broad media spectrum are even aware of this. Democrats are so confident in general MSM support that they even complain about "Republicans being slow to pass a budget", or "having to provide adult supervision". Huh??? They completely abdicated a basic responsibility of government last year because they were worried about showing their cards on spending and taking responsibility in an election year, and NOW that there ARE some adults working to get the job done, they spend all their time in obstruction and name calling. Meanwhile, a majority of Americans are so duped that they believe this situation is "the Republicans fault". Heeellllooo?????? 

Our situation is desperate. It is way past time to roll up our sleeves and realize that we have to get past rhetoric, look closely at what it is that we truly value, and GET BUSY!!!! Get competitive, get frugal, get responsible, get educated, get down to business, and most of all GET REAL!!! Nobody is going to solve our problem for us. There is no big pot of "the wealthy" that can bail us out. Even our supposed bail outs are largely just printed cash that is nothing but inflation.

Ryan is the best mind to show up on this in a very long time. Is he perfect? -- hell no, but it is high time that we realized that there is no such thing as "savior leadership" in this mortal vale of tears, and learn to work hard with the best leaders we have available. BO and the Democrats have been the biggest failure in US history, take a nice cold look at it and get over it!! Ryan and others like him are the way forward and we had better start getting majorities at the 70-80% of Americans to understand that, support it even when the going is tough, and stand up to the kinds of overheated rhetoric with no solutions we are hearing from the left!!!

Why SOME Liberals Believe

Power Line - The Times Retracts

The ruse is simple, you make something up out of very close to whole cloth "The Koch Brothers Contributed $80K to a campaign". It gets "reported" then repeated. This DOES happen on both sides, but the difference is that the NYTs doesn't generally end up reporting the right wing versions as "facts of record" with retractions deeply buried in misleading ways some days later.

People that only follow NYT, NBC, CNN, CBS, NPR, etc believe, and they believe it when they hear that Fox, right wing bloggers are "just a bunch of liars". Their media sources support each other -- and a certain world view. Since they know no other view, they feel justified.

It is actually quite difficult to look at both sides, be able to argue both sides, and come to conclusions based on a broad view, but if we are a nation that wants to continue to have "democratic" in our Republic, then isn't it a responsibility ?? If enough people demand that BOTH SIDES of the media learn to operate in a fact based, non-partisan manner, then maybe the time could come again when we could LEGITIMATELY trust a one or two sources for all our news and know that we were getting information rather than propoganda!

Blame the Electorate?

American Thinker: Will Ignorance Lead to a Second Obama Term?

Blaming the electorate is generally a bad idea, but this analysis of BO voters seems pretty air-tight to me:

When Obama won in 2008, I wrote an article for AT in which I analyzed the various reasons that people had for voting for a person who was clearly incompetent, unprepared, unpatriotic, and basically void of any substance other than his own ego and disdain for American exceptionalism. The five categories of Obama voters included (i) individuals suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome, (ii) followers with a mob mentality of assuming that if everyone liked the guy, he must be wonderful, (iii) socialists, (iv) people with racial guilt looking for a post-racial America, and (v) those suffering from simple ignorance due to a lack of intellectual curiosity to understand the man who would be king.

Now, with over half of Obama's term complete, the only relevant categories of Obama supporters are those falling under items (iii) and (v)

He does leave out idiots and the insane, but I really think they are pretty close to even on both sides. Who is going to be left to vote for BO? 


I sincerely hope -- and very much want to believe that Americans will pass a basic test of rationality and resist the MSM and the elitist posturing in favor of reaity and common sense! If not however ... although I believe our survival of a single term is still highly problematic.

If Obama represents the level of intelligence of the American people, then I fear our Republic will not survive the "multitude of fools" who may very well hand the prince a second term.

Liberal Libyan Clairity

There’s A Clear Logic Behind Obama’s Libya Strategy—but That Doesn’t Mean It Will Succeed. | The New Republic

One of the great things that Democrat presidents have going for them is a lapdog media that will go to any length to create "strategy" out of randomness:

Put simply, Obama’s Libya strategy is designed to avoid the most undesirable outcomes rather than optimize the chances of a desired outcome, to do something without “owning” the conflict, to maintain maximum flexibility as the situation evolves, and to do all of this in the face of powerful constraints.

There you have it. I'd argue that "Have your cake and eat it too" is neither new, or  "strategy". It is identical to the Stimulus and "saved or created". For those that are terminally MSM addicted, or just gullible at heart, this is how it works ... BO Claims:

1. I took action
2. The situation would have been worse I hadn't taken action. Exactly like "saved or created" or the stimulus in general. BUT, while you can see that "I took action", there is no way to check my figures on "saved or created" or my "flexible outcomes" in Libya.
   
3. I'm brilliant because I did EXACTLY THE RIGHT THING given ALL THE FACTS (many of which I may not share with you) ... no matter what the outcome turns out to be!!
4. If it doesn't SEEM brilliant to you, see "I didn't OWN the conflict" and "powerful constraints".
   

One can easily apply this to anything if you have a supportive media and good set of pliant supporters -- but it you don't, it looks like what it is. Attempting to play both sides of the street only to your favor with no concern over what the actual outcome is, and no accountability for it. Great work if you can get it, but no CEO, sports team manager, or even husband working on a honey-do list can get that work. Imagine this response to a plugged toilet in the basement that remains plugged :

• I got the plunger and shut off the water ( action, could have been worse if not taken)
• I told the kid to plunge it (I'm no longer responsible)
• Plumbers are expensive (constraints) 
• Nuff said!!
  

So, here we see that BO isn't the kind of guy you would hire to unstop your toilet, why would anyone hire him as president, and then have a whole media try to claim this is a "strategy"???