Apparently, Gibbs today started to talk about what the President would give away in a negotiation on the expiration of Bush's ruinous tax cuts.
The GOP haven't even had to argue or defend their proposal in public, yet the leader of the Democrats is already making concessions in public.
This is so ridiculous, at so many levels, that I'm about ready to give up.
First of all, Obama has a campaign promise on the table. Letting his press secretary violate that during a no-cameras "gaggle" is the kind of communications failure that this White House will not be forgiven a second time around. If Gibbs doesn't have the rhetorical skill to avoid "negotiating in the press" when the cards are stacked, he's got to go.
Second, shouldn't the Senate be running interference for the President, so we can avoid the President-versus-McConnell routine that's only going to play to the GOP's advantage? The list goes on and on, from a communications perspective. It's fine the the President is having the new leadership to the White House, but, more often than not, Senators should talk to Senators and the President should be, well, the President of the United States, not "super Senator from Illinois".
Everyone does not "deserve" a tax cut. So much for shutting down the "ATM of the next generation" - do you think that the middle class isn't going to be asked to pay the check in 2012?
If Obama has a coherent set of reasons to make a concession, he'd better articulate them, fully. If he thinks people are going to "trust him twice" about his campaign promise, he's not understanding how long a memory people have on this.
