WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- Back in World War II, there used to be a sign up in port cities: "Loose Lips Sink Ships," a warning to sailors that an imprudent remark about their ship sailings could get to enemy spies and result in a vessel being torpedoed.
Perhaps there should be a warning for politicians as well: "Chance Phrases Sink Credibility."
President George W. Bush and his father, George Herbert Walker Bush, are masters of the chance phrase, evidence "read my lips" -- the elder Bush's remark when he pledged never to raise taxes. People were still trying to read his lips when he did raise taxes.
Last Saturday, following in his father's footsteps, George W. Bush told a town meeting in Ontario, Calif., that anybody who tried to slow down his $1.35 trillion, 10-year tax cut was actually advocating tax increases and "not over my dead body will they raise your taxes."
The remark made headlines across the country. But it seemed imprudent in fact and context.
As President Bush well knows, Americans value his safety. Tempting the fates with this remark in this terror-filled world was jarring at best. The president's safety is constantly on the minds of a vast security team, and if a private citizen made a chance remark about the president's abrupt demise he or she might well end up having a long talk with Secret Service agents.
Counselor to the President Karen Hughes, the guardian of Bush's words and phrases, must have shuddered at the moment.
And as Connecticut Democrat Sen. Joe Liebermann pointed out Sunday, it "wasn't very smart, either," signaling a no-bargaining position in the 2002 political tax battles this far in advance.
At issue is not Bush's tax cut. It is already law, passed last fall in the Senate with the backing of 12 Democrats.
The issue is how to get the money to pay for the war on terrorism, homeland security, education reforms, revamping of the public health system, reviving the economy and reordering Social Security in a time when falling government revenues will cut two-thirds from expected surpluses over the next decade.
Bush and the GOP claim tax cuts are fundamental to reviving the economy, which everyone now agrees slumped into recession last March.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle fired the first salvo of the tax battle Friday, arguing the Bush tax cut was preferential for the rich and could make it impossible to fund homeland defense needs.
Certainly Bush wasn't expected to roll over for Daschle and rescind his tax cut, but what is likely to unfold in Washington is compromise, a little bit of this and little bit of that. In the end, it may require delaying some Bush tax breaks. Backing away from "over my dead body" will be more difficult than "read my lips."
"Over my dead body" isn't the first hyperbolic phrase with which Bush has burdened himself. When he said the United States would get alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden "dead or alive," he personalized the war on terrorism and now, 90 days after U.S. troops set out in Afghanistan, it is coming back to haunt the administration.
Laconic fellow Texan Tommy Franks, the general charged with bringing in bin Laden, has been careful in every briefing to establish the military mission was to remove the Taliban from power and destroy the al Qaida, both missions that are well along.
And the president wasn't the only one to focus on bin Laden last fall. When Vice President Dick Cheney said he wouldn't mind bin Laden's head on a platter, it raised the question whether the mission could be a success when you don't snare the top suspect.
There are plenty of national security experts in and out of government who believe the United States may never find out what happened to bin Laden. And there are others who argue it isn't important. One Senate aide said real "victory" is not arresting bin Laden but halting the threat of Middle East terrorism, "for which there are numerous masters."
