Obama Backpedaling ??????

Well it only took the New York Times one day to run a post-election article: "Obama Aides Tamp Down Expectations". The Times is blatantly for Obama so the question naturally arises was this article a legitimate news story OR was it a planted story by the Obama camp to lay a foundation for a future media blitz to diminish the promises made during the campaign.

One story, by itself does, not prove that this story was planted. Nevertheless politicians are not noted for being up-front when it comes to campaign promises. Once elected, campaign promises become a political liability. A political savvy person would never acknowledge that they purposely made promises that they had no intention of keeping just to get elected. Instead they would initiate, post election, a media campaign that would "document" the complexities of the "problem" and that after careful "consideration" would require a revision of the campaign promises to reflect "reality". The movie Wag the Dog (Wikipedia) comes to mind as a humerus example of how this manipulative process works to shape public opinion. Clearly it is to the benefit of the Obama camp to recharacterize campaign promises as hopeful goals rather than as real concrete commitments.

Is this story a tentative initiation of a future media campaign to diminish Obama's campaign promises? I don't know. Only time will tell.
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Updated 11/9/2008: The Washington Post ran an article "Can He Do It?" The Post writes: "During the long election campaign, Sen. Barack Obama promised many things to many taxpayers, investors and homeowners. When he first announced some of his proposals, the economy and the federal budget looked vastly different." (Emphasis added). "What probably has to give is swift action on the myriad tax cuts that candidate Obama laid out on the stump, analysts said. " ... "William Gale, director of economic studies at the Brookings Institution. "Remember, the plans were created at a time when we weren't in this situation. Something has to give. Significant flexibility is required." " (Empahis added)

There is no doubt that priorities have to change in the face of a worsening economy. Neverless, like the New York Times article; is this article a legitimate exploration of the difficulties to be faced in implementing the campaign promisess or is it a forunner of the pro-Obama media to initiate a crusade to diminish Obama's campaign promises?