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Now the issue is his character. The President promised no new taxes on the middle class, specifically saying that the mandate was a penalty, not a tax. Meanwhile, through the entire process of the legal challenge to Obamacare, Justice Department lawyers argued that the mandate was a tax. Indeed, his own Solicitor General asserted before the Supreme Court in March that the mandate was a tax.
It was a classic “bait and switch.” So thus the inevitable question: Was the President trying to deceive us when he said that the mandate was not a tax? Or were his aides deceiving him–telling him to say one thing while they said another? Answering that question poses a Hobson’s Choice for Obama: On the one hand, he admits to deception, and on the other hand, he admits that he can’t detect deception within his circle–and furthermore, that he tolerates it after it is exposed. No matter what the answer to that forked question, the President will have lost his 2008 glow; he is no longer the man who can transcend the blue-state/red-state division through the grace of his own noble character.
These are the big stakes for the 2012 election: whether a deceptive president–and/or a deceptive presidential administration–should be rewarded with a second term.
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via EXCLUSIVE – CADDELL: Taxes and Trust – The Achilles Heels of Obamacare and Obama.