Depending on where you sit, President Obama’s recent and growing outreach to rank and file Republicans is either a major victory for platitudinous calls for leadership or the early stages of a “charm offensive” that will divide Republicans and party leaders, isolate House Republicans, and ultimately provide Obama with the budget “grand bargain” he’s been chasing for two years.

Here’s my own hunch: This is as much about placating DC elites as it is rooted in an earnest belief that Obama can get Rob Portman, Ron Johnson, and others to agree to raise taxes by $600 billion. The idea is — or part of it — that if the effort fails, then critics of his leadership will at long last have to acknowledge that GOP anti-tax absolutism is the irreducible element of budget gridlock in Washington. I don’t think things work this way. For people who believe leadership boils down to backslapping and cajoling, the absence of a deal — any deal — is tautologically evidence that both parties have somehow failed. Read More

Bill and Hillary taking a stroll through Manhattan.

A quick look at Obama’s second term team … so far. Good to see that Bo made the cut.

After Senate Republicans today filibustered the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said it might be time to revisit the (weak) deal Senate Democrats struck on filibuster reform at the beginning of this Congress … in January.

Was the Pentagon linked to Iraqi torture centers?

Yesterday, as noted here, The Daily Caller attacked The Washington Post and stood by their Menendez/prostitution story. But, not altogether consistent with that, they also said they’d spend yesterday verifying their story. So we’re keeping our collective ears to the ground today waiting to hear how that verification went. Read More

Disgraced ex-Rep Bob Ney (R-OH), one of the mid-level players in the Abramoff scandal, says now-Speaker Boehner offered him a job to get him to resign.

Govt. Report: We wasted a ton of money in Iraq.

The payroll company ADP reports that the US created 198,000 private sector jobs in February.

So is Menendez toast or the Daily Caller? Here’s our scorecard of what happened over the last 24 hours.

Note: The Daily Caller said yesterday they were going back to verify their story. So presumably they’ll be back sometime today with either a big thumbs up or an awkward silence. So we’ll be watching for that.