the pledge isn't a spell that if you can trick it or some sort of fantasy character guarding a gateway that if you can trick it dissolves and no republicans are bound by it. the pledge is a manifestation of the fact that republicans oppose tax increases. if you find a way to increase taxes such as that the pledge does not technically cover it, that does not mean that republicans will support your tax increases. if you let the bush tax cuts expire, you will raise taxes pie $3.6 trillion as opposed to what happened if you extend the bush tax cuts. that is vastly larger tax increase than anything that is on the table currently. so it is very odd to think that mr. are republicans that due to the wording of the pledge would move to support that. >> right. duval patrick, who was a harvard classmate of grover norquist, was at a reunion with him in 2003, and he wrote about this in "the washington post" recently. and when grover apparently in a panel discussion said something