An observer from up on the Hill chimes in on the latest GOP budget shenanigans …

[Ryan’s ‘shadow budget’] reminds me if the Republican “substitute” budget we voted on last year that was essentially the same thing from Ryan. Allowing people to “choose” a tax structure is just Republicans being cowards. You see, by including the drastically lower tax bracket as a choice (since it was a budget and had to have, you know, numbers), when it came time to predict revenues, it assumed that NO ONE chose the simplified tax code, and the massive dropoff in revenues simply disappeared. Its one of the reasons its so aggravating listening to Ryan smugly pontificate about deficits and budgets. He knows he’s full of it, and he knows his phony “budget” is full of it.

Pentagon apparently mulling ways to de-citizenize US citizen terrorists.

It transcends self-parody. Dean of the Washington press corps, David Broder declares Sarah Palin has the right stuff.

The snows that obliterated Washington in the past week interfered with many scheduled meetings, but they did not prevent the delivery of one important political message: Take Sarah Palin seriously.

Her lengthy Saturday night keynote address to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville and her debut on the Sunday morning talk show circuit with Fox News’ Chris Wallace showed off a public figure at the top of her game — a politician who knows who she is and how to sell herself, even with notes on her palm.

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More important, she has locked herself firmly in the populist embrace that every skillful outsider candidate from George Wallace to Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton has utilized when running against “the political establishment.”

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The lady is good.

Read the whole thing.

A very interesting companion to David Broder’s endorsement of Sarah Palin as a politician with the right stuff who’s a real contender for the presidency in tomorrow’s Post.

The Post itself has a new poll out with interesting Palin numbers.

55% of Americans have an unfavorable view of Palin while 37% have a favorable impression of her. That’s actually a bit worse than other recent polls of this question have shown. But the really revealing number is how many people consider her qualified to be president.

Over 70% say no, she’s not. And that’s up from 60% just last November. Even a majority of Republicans say she’s not qualified to serve as president.

The key tell in these numbers is that even more and more of the people who like her and continue to like her are coming to the realization that she’s simply not equipped to serve as president.

Robert Reich explains why the Anthem Blue Cross rate hike in California is a really big deal.

Republican leaders have had it with John Brennan because when they hit him with ridiculous political attacks he pushes back. What’s the world come to?

More than 70% say Palin is not qualified or equipped to serve as president. A steep decline from on last fall.

But a quarter of the population and David Broder ain’t nuthin’.

Obama is predicting that the economy will add 95,000 new jobs each month over the next year. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

From the LA Times (via @aterkel):

FOR THE RECORD:
Sarah Palin: In some editions of Sunday’s Section A, an article about Sarah Palin’s speech to the National Tea Party Convention quoted her as saying, “How’s that hopey, changing stuff working out for you?” She said, “How’s that hopey, changey stuff working out for you?” —

Glad they cleared that up.

Fox News yesterday took a copy of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and stuck it in the snow outside company headquarters for all the world to see.

Taking Fox’s lead, Stephen Colbert observed on his show last night: “It is dark outside … we can only assume the sun has been destroyed.” Jon Stewart also joined in on the fun. Watch.