The one before the election:

The one now:

Pressed by industry lobbyists, White House officials on Wednesday assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion.

Drug industry lobbyists reacted with alarm this week to a House health care overhaul measure that would allow the government to negotiate drug prices and demand additional rebates from drug manufacturers.

In response, the industry successfully demanded that the White House explicitly acknowledge for the first time that it had committed to protect drug makers from bearing further costs in the overhaul. The Obama administration had never spelled out the details of the agreement.

“We were assured: ‘We need somebody to come in first. If you come in first, you will have a rock-solid deal,’ ” Billy Tauzin, the former Republican House member from Louisiana who now leads the pharmaceutical trade group, said Wednesday. “Who is ever going to go into a deal with the White House again if they don’t keep their word? You are just going to duke it out instead.”

A deputy White House chief of staff, Jim Messina, confirmed Mr. Tauzin’s account of the deal in an e-mail message on Wednesday night.

“The president encouraged this approach,” Mr. Messina wrote. “He wanted to bring all the parties to the table to discuss health insurance reform.”

Why won't the [Single Payer Advocates, Blue Dogs, Progressive Caucus, C-list bloggers, etc.,] get out of the way so Obama can reform healthcare!

Snicker. DCOW, but guess who has a crush on PonyBoi? Powerloin!

The folks at First Draft take an unfriendly look at President Bush's extemporaneous comments in the Ramallah press conference yesterday. With equal parts humor and malice, they slice the comments into bite-sized morsels and provide appropriate headings for them. I think I understand the comments all too well and hope to take another look at his statement when I have a little more time.

UPDATE: I mistook First Draft for Professor Richard Landes's The Second Draft. because you're a moron with the reading comprehension skillz of a second grader, you cheeto-snapper. The folks at First Draft are among the sophisticates who refer to President Bush as "Chimpy." Unfortunately, their take on President Bush's Ramallah press conference is on target.

Because everybody gets a pony!

Why does Admiral Fallon hate the troops? National security analyst Gareth Porter writes:

In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.

Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.

More importantly, why does Admiral Fallon hate ponies?

Anyhow, this isn't the first time Petraeus and his boss have clashed over Iraq policy. WaPo: