Andrew Breitbart, Big Government, has released what five ACORN videos. Let me see, Baltimore, DC, Brooklyn, San Bernadino and San Diego. So I find it hard to accept this line from the one at face value, from this Weak with George Stephanopoulos, ABC News [1]:
OBAMA: You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated.
That video, as in singular. The one does not reveal to which single video he is referring. It is certainly the most interesting presidential use of the word “that” since B.J. Clinton wagged his finger as the American public and denied having sex with that Miss Lewinsky.
Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit [2].
Addendum I:
Michelle [3] thinks the one is just play acting:
Channeling clueless Charlie Gibson and Nancy Pelosi, President Obama is playing dumb about ACORN.
Michelle seems to forget that Mrs. Pelosi does not play at pretending to be dumb.
Addendum II:
Either the one doesn’t know the definition of the word tax, or he feels he assign any meaning at to a word. If Obama words means only what Obama wants them to mean, then they but mere words. Evidently Obama feels that a tax is not a tax, unless Obama deems it to be a tax, James Taranto, Best of the Web [4]:
President Obama didn’t make much news on his round of five Sunday talk shows yesterday, with one notable exception. The President revealed a great deal about his philosophy of government and how he defines a tax increase. It turns out the President thinks a health-care tax is not a tax if he thinks the tax is for your own good.
Transcript, via Gateway Pundit [5]:
STEPHANOPOULOS: That may be, but it’s still a tax increase.
OBAMA: No. That’s not true, George. The… ?for us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it’s saying is, is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that… right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase. People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I’m not covering all the costs.STEPHANOPOULOS: But it may be fair, it may be good public policy…
OBAMA: No, but… but, George, you… you can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax increase. Any…
STEPHANOPOULOS: Here’s the…
OBAMA: What… what… if I… if I say that right now your premiums are going to be going up by 5 or 8 or 10 percent next year and you say… well, that’s not a tax increase; but, on the other hand, if I say that I don’t want to have to pay for you not carrying coverage even after I give you tax credits that make it affordable, then…
STEPHANOPOULOS: I… I don’t think I’m making it up. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary: Tax…”a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.”
OBAMA: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam’s Dictionary, the… definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you’re stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to the… dictionary to check on the definition. I mean what…
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, no, but…
OBAMA: …what you’re saying is…
STEPHANOPOULOS: I wanted to check for myself. But your critics say it is a tax increase.
OBAMA: My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I’m taking over every sector of the economy. You know that.
Video:
Is an individual mandate a tax or not, Chris Frates and Mike Allen, Politico [6]:
In the most contentious exchange of President Barack Obama’s marathon of five Sunday shows, he said it is “not true” that a requirement for individuals to get health insurance under a key reform plan now being debated amounts to a tax increase.
But he could look it up — in the bill.
Page 29, sentence one of the bill introduced by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont) says: “The consequence for not maintaining insurance would be an excise tax.”
George Stephanopoulus, Chris Frates and Mike Allen all of ABC News, call an individual mandate a tax. The Senate version’s author, Max Baucus calls it a tax. Merriam Webster calls it a tax. Obama says it not a tax. Apparently Stephanpoulus, Frates, Allen, Baucus and Webster are all wrong, or the one is all wet.