We’ve given explicit marching orders to our editors and reporters not to get distracted by the ‘meta’ part of the wikileaks story and just focus on the details unearthed. So let me take the opportunity to perhaps contradict those marching orders and share some initial thoughts on the meta front.
First, we’re covering all the details we can find. So that puts some real limits on how much we can credibly criticize the way these cables came to light. I’m also not sure we would have made different decisions than, say, The New York Times, if we’d been given the opportunity to report out the cables in advance of their release. And of course we here at TPM like every other news organization routinely file FOIA requests on the reasoning that it’s in the public interest to get as much as possible of the inner workings of government exposed to the public. Read More
Obama’s federal worker pay freeze is a budget gimmick that Republicans can love.
House Democrats are actually planning to bring a middle class tax cut extension only to a vote this week. That’s a pretty dramatic turnaround from the days right after the election when the White House was signaling that it would go along with an extension of the tax cuts for all income levels. It also seemed extremely unlikely that if the Democrats didn’t have the spine to bring the tax cuts up for a vote before the election that they’d find the wherewithal to do it after getting shellacked in the midterms. But a vote is virtually assured at this point.
All that being said, it’s very uncertain that there are enough votes to pass the middle class cuts only. And in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s not exactly a rip-roaring public campaign by Democrats in Congress or by the White House to rally support and drum up votes.
Sen. Susan Collins now says she’d be more likely to vote for the START Treaty in the Senate if the first or second President Bushes spoke out in favor of it.
House Dems are saying they’re going to push through with a vote on a middle-class only tax bill vote this week.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, on the Wikileaks cable saying he parties hard: “Once a month, I throw dinner parties at my houses, where everything takes place in a proper, dignified and elegant way.”
By the time a report purporting to debunk the science of climate change was discredited, it had already made the rounds and accomplished its main purpose: giving climate change deniers a peg to hang their hats on.
We’re tracking the developments on the Wikileaks story — including the ongoing revelations as documents are reviewed — at TPM’s Wikileaks Wire.
A pay freeze for federal workers is the sort of gimmicky deficit reduction measure that you could see using as a bargaining chip in broader negotiations over how to best reduce the deficit. But as a standalone, unilateral concession? It doesn’t do much to actually reduce the deficit and it’s a shot at a core part of the Democratic base, so why concede it right off the bat?
The DLC-esque Third Way offers its explanation: “The President’s announcement today recognizes that we need to take serious action to get the deficit under control, and that we need to take a ‘government goes first’ approach to build public trust and prepare for the sacrifices we’ll need to put our fiscal house in order.”
“Government goes first” usually means “Democrats go first” in these negotiations. Republicans then use that concession to redefine the “middle” as further to the right — at which point Democrats concede again and the whole cycle repeats itself.