Republicans now saying SS and Medicare in good shape?

[Just One Woman]

I saw an ad last night for my local Tennessee representative saying that President Obama is wrong about checks not going out. He wanted to make sure that Tennesseans knew that there was plenty of money and that no one would not be getting their check. Wait a minute....Hold the phone... Isn't that a complete opposite view than just a few days ago by so many of these same Republicans? Weren't they saying we would not have the money, that these programs have to be changed? And now they are spending money to correct themselves. President Obama has succeeded in getting Republicans to defend what they argued against. Fairly brilliant! Of course, President Obama was very careful with his words, "I cannot guarantee that checks will go out". But boy did these Republicans start making sure that we all know what they themselves said last week was a lie. Their fear-mongering back fired on them. Thank you President Obama. Simply hilarious!

[rucky]

1. This is awesome.

[Lasher]

2. Stumbling over their own talking points.

That's the problem with being a liar, you have to keep track of what lies you've told before.

[monmouth]

3. Under estimating the President is a long shot at best. He's got this..LOL.n/t

[patrice]

4. Looking into PAYMENTS in Medicare will affect some of their & SaintCo's best donors. nt

[bahrbearian]

5. But he can guarantee the checks can go out,, he was playing a fear card.

[Igel]

6. When "it depends what the meaning of 'is' is" was said, it was ridiculed.

It's a reasonable kind of question. "Be" can mean a number of things.

Even harder to explain is that a tense-aspect form, completely grammatical in function, can mean a number of things.

"I'm going to the store" can be present tense or future tense, it can mean that you're going and returning or going and staying, it can mean that you're overdue for going to the store. It can be a one-off event or an iterative. Intonationa matters, of course, but even more important is context.

"Come help me with cleaning the car."
"I'm going to the store." In the very near future, once, open ended as to whether you're returning.

"What are you doing next 3rd of July?"
"I'm going to the store." Once, and probably returning, but not going to happen for nearly a year.

"I want you out. Don't come back. Here, take your sugar glider."
"I'm going to the store." There's a storeroom with a cot, short term but not returning.

"So, you're unemployed. How do you kill time?"
"I'm going to the store." Most days. Killing time. Usually followed by a list of other repeated activities.

"There's no problem with Social Security." To wit, right now.

"There's a problem with Social Security. We need to act now because in 15 years we'll have to ask the public T-bill market to start buying an additional $150 billion in debt securities." Well, the problem's really in 15 years (I'm sorry, "The problem will be in 15 years") but because there's some relevance to now it's still presence tense.

It takes a certain kind of Gricean non-cooperativeness to overlook native speaker competence. Politicians and lawyers elevate it to an art (so do a lot of PR folk). Most people have no problem with it but are fairly artless. The problem is that ignoring cooperativeness and abusing it is taken as lying (it's not: it's dishonest and manipulative, but not lying) or as ill will (on that score they're pretty much right, although disdain and disregard are often better terms for it).