"If I don't have this done in three years, then this is going to be a one-term proposition." --Barack Obama in interview with Matt Lauer, 2 Feb. 2009
The snippet does not provide sufficient context to identify what the word "this" refers to. I did a Google search for a phrase and found dozens of pages from anti-Obama sources that quoted that one sentence, but not a single one of those that I looked at identified the referent of the word "this." It looked suspiciously as if these sources were taking an utterance of the president that contained a pronoun and supplying that pronoun with the meaning of their choice--shocking though it may be to suggest that the anti-Obama crowd would ever do such a thing
rolleyes
.
One page did, however, supply a link to the
transcript of the interview. And, hey, what do you know, surprise, surprise--it turns out that Obama was not talking about reducing the deficit.
MATT LAUER: The American people might worry that the bailout, you know, could be off course because if the money's going to people who simply are out of touch, it's not a confidence builder.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Right. Well, and that's why it's my job as president and Congress's job to make sure that there's some rules of the road that people are gonna abide by, and that we've got transparency and accountability.
[The discussion that follows is all about TARP and consequences for the banks. After it has continued for a while, this occurs:]
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yeah, well — I — I don't wanna preempt an announcement next week. And there's a lot of technical aspects to it. And if I — say — that we're doing one thing. then the markets might interpret it differently from what it ends up being. But the basic principle that we're gonna have to see some of this debt written down, that the government is gonna have to support some banks, that others that are not — not viable, essentially that we're gonna have to — do something with those assets.
MATT LAUER: At some point will you say, "Wait a minute, we've spent this amount of money. We're not seeing the results. We've got to change course dramatically?"
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Look, I'm at the start of my administration. One nice thing about — the situation I find myself in is that I will be held accountable. You know, I've got four years. And —
MATT LAUER: You're gonna know quickly how people feel —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: — and — and —
MATT LAUER: — about what —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: that's exactly right. And — and, you know, a year from now I think people — are gonna see that — we're starting to make some progress. But there's still gonna be some pain out there. If I don't have this done in three years, then there's gonna be a one-term proposition.
So the pronoun "this" refers to holding the big banks accountable for the money that has been lent to them. It has nothing whatever to do with cutting the deficit in half.