Shorter than usual

Shorter Than Usual:

Didn't we just hear the President say that government needed to tighten it's belt?

Families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same.

That was just a few days ago, right? I mean, not even a week.

Released to Congress Monday morning, the president’s spending plan anticipates $5.08 trillion in deficits over the next five years and seems almost a cry for help in the face of what he sees as intransigent Republican opposition.

If it's a cry for help, it may be a cry for some other kind of help.

I can understand how you can believe two different, contradictory things. It can happen because there is no context that causes you to reflect on the fact tha these two principles you believe are actually in contradiction. It can also be an act of will: presumably at least some people who shoplift believe they are doing something wrong, but do it anyway because they put aside the sense of the wrongness in return for the immediate need or desire that they are gratifying. Doubtless you can both believe that it is wrong to drink to excess, and also "...believe I'll have another drink."

Still, this seems unusually abrubt and sharp. It's as if he said what he said in the hope that you wouldn't notice that he's doing what he's doing. It's the opposite of Clinton-style triangulation: instead of figuring out where the middle is and going there, you try to satisfy one side through speech, and the other side through action.

As long as the people you're trying to satisfy through speech don't realize you're playing them for suckers, that should work just fine. Only one problem: it's already too late to hope they won't realize.