When Is 'Not an Option' Not an Option?

Regarding the Big Three automakers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says:

I believe an intervention will happen, either legislatively or from the administration. I think it's pretty clear that bankruptcy is not an option.

Where have we heard this sort of talk before? Where haven't we?

"In these challenging times, when we are facing both rising deficits and a sinking economy," President-elect Obama said last week, "budget reform is not an option." He added, "It's a necessity," but the statement probably would have been more accurate if he hadn't.

The next day, USA Today editorialized that Obama's stimulus package "must be bold because timidity is not an option in these dire times." So much for budget reform.

Also last week, A.P. explained that Citibank's failure "is not an option," while Alistair Darling, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, said taxes must go up because "doing nothing is not an option."

In his November 18 speech on global warming, Obama insisted that "delay is no longer an option."

Back in September, when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was drumming up support for his $700 billion plan to encourage lending by purchasing "troubled assets" from financial institutions, Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) announced that "we have to do something," because "inaction is not an option." A few days later, Republican presidential candidate John McCain, possibly after reading David Broder's column on the subject, concurred. A month and a half later, after getting the $700 billion he had demanded, Paulson officially abandoned the plan whose nonimplementation he had declared a nonoption.