OBAMA TO DEBT COMMISSION: ‘Everything Has to Be on the Table’.

The Washington Examiner’s Chris Stirewalt observes (third item):

The president certainly likes to set a big table, but the portions usually seem to end up being pretty skimpy for those who disagree with him.

As with health care, Afghanistan strategy, economic recovery, energy and seemingly everything else, Obama favors a laborious process of decision making before arriving back at his obvious decision.

His debt commission seems to be the most lavish example of this process-intensive approach to validating his decisions so far.

The end result from the deficit commission – after Alan Simpson gets done berating his fellow Republicans for anti-gay bias and a list of other offenses real and perceived – will be the president’s support for a huge tax increase and some modifications to Medicare to help battle the deficit that is squeezing America so much tighter after the president’s emergency spending and national health program.

The best evidence is that the administration so often finds ways to rephrase candidate Obama’s iron-clad promise not to raise taxes on any family making less than $250,000 a year: “Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes,” he once said. Now, the president talks about a promise not to raise “income taxes.”

After the election, get ready for some even more creative language.

In other words, the panel is designed, not to succeed, but to give Obama cover.