"can't afford to do both"

[Brian Hitchcock]

I submit that Mr. Obama was not speaking in a financial sense, but instead
was using *we can't afford to* in a figurative sense. He refuses to do
both, because he feels that we as a society

can't afford to do both,  socially or morally, even if doing both did
yield a greater reduction in the deficit. (The subtext is that he can't
afford it politically. He wants to do the former, the Repugnicans want to
do the latter, and this time he will refuse to compromise by "doing both",
as he arguably has tried to do in previous compromises on health reform
and the debt ceiling, each time re-discovering, to his dismay that this
alienates his base, without appeasing the opposition nor slaking in the
slightest their desire for conflict, and thus reduces his own political
'capital'.)



Date:    Mon, 19 Sep 2011 21:18:29 -0400

From:    Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>

Subject: ObamaSpeak?



"Either we ask the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share in taxes,
or we're going to have to ask seniors to pay more for Medicare.

We can't afford to do both"



Isn't doing both the only thing we _can_ afford to do??



I am not trying to make a political point, but a rhetorical one -- as I
see it, Obama said the exact opposite of what he meant.



DanG

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org