Saxby Chambliss: When a Pledge is Not a Pledge

    Today, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., announced he was abandoning his long-standing pledge against new taxes.  In the 1990s, Chambliss and many other Republicans signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge as formulated by Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform.  Chambliss explained his decision thusly:

"I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge," he told WMAZ-TV. "If we do it his way then we’ll continue in debt, and I just have a disagreement with him about that."

     Hmmmm.  Twenty years ago is 1992.  What is so familiar about 1992 and taxes?  Oh, yes, now I remember:

"Read my lips: no new taxes."

    Technically, of course, George Bush said this during the 1988 campaign.  But 1992 is the year that incumbent George Bush received less than 38% of the popular vote revealing that the American electorate had actually taken him seriously.  Saxby Chambliss is up for reelection in two years and may well find that 2014 will be his 1992.