So, Brooks admits he flat out lied about Prez having no plan to avoid sequester

[bigtree]

from Ezra Klein at WaPo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/22/does-obama-have-a-plan-a-conversation-with-david-brooks/?print=1


I had some issues with David Brooks’s column Friday on the two parties’ sequester positions. But rather than write a long response, I thought it would be more interesting to ask Brooks about the column directly. Happily, he agreed. A transcript of our conversation follows.

Ezra Klein: In the column, you said that the Obama administration doesn’t have a plan to replace the sequester. I feel like I’ve had to spend a substantial portion of my life reading their various budgets and plans to replace the sequester, and my sense is that you’ve had to do this, too. So, what am I missing?

David Brooks: First, the column was a bit of an over-the-top lampooning column about dance moves. I probably went a bit too far when saying the president didn’t have a response to the sequester save to raise taxes on the rich. In the cool light of day, I can say that’s over the top. There’s chained CPI and $400 billion in health proposals. So I should say I was unfair. I’m going to attach a note to the column, if it’s not up already.

The second thing I would say is that, as [Congressional Budget Office director] Doug Elmendorf said in testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, there’s no scorable plan they’ve come up with, at least this time around. And given that one theme of the budget negotiations has been that it can be very hard to tell what’s on the table from the White House, it would serve the country well if they put out something specific.

EK: I don’t know the Elmendorf comments off-hand, but CBO did score the president’s budget, and almost all of their proposals are drawn from that. I find, in general, that legislators often ask Elmendorf if he’s scored things from the White House and then crow about the fact that he hasn’t, when all that’s really going on is CBO doesn’t score everything the president does or says . . .


read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/22/does-obama-have-a-plan-a-conversation-with-david-brooks/?print=1

. . . NY Times should either fire Brooks immediately or ask for his resignation. Notice that Brooks didn't even acknowledge he was 'just-funnin'' about the President having no plan to avoid the sequester until confronted by Ezra (and a flood of twitterali).


Greg Sargent ?@ThePlumLineGS
David Brooks' "correction" is still a massive dodge. http://wapo.st/15BhZPY

[Ed Suspicious]

1. It's the republican model. Loudly and intentionoally fuck up first, quietly apologize later.

[monmouth3]

2. Will Joe Scarborough walk this back? Bwahahahaha, I kill me...n/t