Anyone heard of a trial balloon? I think that's what the tax cut cave-in story was.

[originalpckelly]

David Axelrod definitely did admit to talking to the Huffington Post, but he backtracked on the whole cave-in part of the story.

It was a trial balloon. The assholes were feeling us out to see what they could get away with.

Either that, or the writer was full of crap. You never know about these things.

However, considering the bullshit Obama's administration has pulled, selling us out so many times, I wouldn't be surprised.

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Let me be the first pedant to point out your typo in your headline

'trail balloon', when you use the typo-free 'trial' later. If you correct it, you won't get annoying people like me going on about it.

[originalpckelly]

5. Hey, I'm sorry. Attribute it to the lack of sleep I'm getting from puppy.

I have a new puppy. He's sort of like the Tasmanian Devil.

I sleep with this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as3JMPx4FIU

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. No need to apologise - we all make typos

It's just the kind of thing that you can notice, and then it niggles. :)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. He did not back-track

Quite the opposite. He said that what he said was old news and the long-established position of the WH.

So it's the opposite of a trial balloon.

[hlthe2b]

3. I'm damned tired of being treated like a human yoyo...

that's all I know. I no longer trust anything being reported and it does nothing for the administration's credibility. I absolutely don't know what to think, but if so many of his ardent supporters are thinking like me, he's got problems.

[Roma]

4. What if when it lands we find nobody in there?

[county worker]

6. For what reason do we need a trial baloon? We all know what we think and

so does the White House!

[gratuitous]

9. Trial balloon or setting the narrative?

Because it seems to me that if they can float the idea of "temporarily" extending the tax cuts for the wealthy, it gets into the national consciousness. They wait out the anticipated push back from their putative base, then proceed with what they have planned all along, knowing that the notion of a tax cut, even for the wealthy, even one that can't be paid for, even a "temporary" one, will be acceptable to the taxophobes and made acceptable by their wealthy pals in the media.

The non-denial "denial" is simply designed to mute some of the push back.

[county worker]

10. Even though two years from now the right just may have the ability to make them

permanent. I believe that conservatives thought they would be in power on 2010 so it was OK to put in a sunset clause. This time they want a temporary extension so they can take control of the government and make them permanent.

I would like Obama to have the balls to tell the repubs that if they don't support just extending the cuts for the middle class then they all will expire.

[gratuitous]

12. I agree completely

I'm sure that if the tax cuts for the wealthy are extended "temporarily" for any length of time at all, they will be permanent for the foreseeable future, whether they're paid for or not. Compensatory cuts may be made elsewhere so that the wealthy don't have to pay an extra three cents on the dollar for annual earnings over a quarter million. Isn't that nice of the rest of us?

[AndrewP]

7. I am wondering about that as well

[saracat]

8. No ,it wasn't . They WILL cave, just like they did on the Public Option, the

mandates and DADT repeal( and they WILL cave on that too).Some folks here swore that we would have a PO.After all the Prez "promised" NOT to sign any HCR without a PO. I was considered the devil incarnate for saying otherwise, just likewhen HCR was caled Romeycare as Obama now refers to it.

[sally cat]

11. The trial balloon is the cat food commission stuff. The tax cut stuff is real.