I watched the President’s press conference. If his intention was to hang the debt ceiling impasse around the necks of the GOP I’m not sure he was successful. I say this because afterward the MSNBC talking heads were mostly droning that the President needs to put a deal on the table. Huh?

The first question, from Jake Tapper, was about what the President was willing to sign off on in the way of budget cuts. The answer was a bit droning, but the President listed a number of specific cuts he said he would consider as part of a balanced package. In other words, he refused to give anything away without knowing what the other side was going to give away, which is smart. He’s not promising anything without seeing the total package. This got translated by the bobbleheads as refusing to go on the record of what he would cut. And if that’s what’s on MSNBC, I’d hate to think what they did to it at Fox News.

By now it should be obvious that if the President did put out his own proposed package for Congress to take or leave, the Republicans would vote it down just because it was him proposing it. So what’s the point?

And, anyway, authorizing the Treasury to raise revenue to pay for debts is Congress’s job. Not the President’s job.

I’m sure a lot of the economics bloggers are going to criticize the President for wanting to give away too much, but I think he’s got less room to maneuver, politically, than they appreciate. He’s taking a very “centrist,” meaning what used to be “conservative” in days gone by, position. That may not be policy smarts, but I think that’s where he has to be if the Republicans are ever going to agree to anything that will increase the debt ceiling..

He seemed to me to be firm that he has no intention of extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich again, which is something.

The President will give a news conference later this morning, although I’ll be surprised if he has any big announcements about the resolution of the debt ceiling impasse. I understand he’s pretty much punted the ball back to Congress and told them they’ve got hours to make a deal.

Steve Benen and Paul Krugman both note that Republicans are rejecting offers that the White House took out of the GOP playbook. Benen wrote,

Obama was willing to trade needless tax subsidies, some of which even Republicans don’t like, for a separate tax cut that benefits private employers. This is, as of last week, exactly the kind of deal GOP leaders said they were inclined to support.

But when the president put it on the table, and set up the deal exactly as Republicans want it, they still said no. And remember, a payroll tax cut is the GOP’s preferred approach to job creation.

Krugman writes,

… the modern G.O.P. fundamentally does not accept the legitimacy of a Democratic presidency — any Democratic presidency. We saw that under Bill Clinton, and we saw it again as soon as Mr. Obama took office.

So I have no idea how this impasse will, or can, be broken. Do read Andrew Leonard’s primer for teabaggers on what will happen if the debt ceiling isn’t raised.

Rupert Murdoch’s British press empire is in meltdown. British politicians are dissociating themselves from Murdoch as fast as they can.

However, I am skeptical the same would ever happen in America, even if a recently launched FBI investigation finds that Murdoch’s minions hacked 9/11 families. I’m betting that even now loyalists are putting together reasons why such hacking was justified. And I can already see Little Lulu leading the charge to smear and demonize anyone who was hacked.

So I think this British writer is wrong — if the FBI finds that the phones of 9/11 families were hacked, Fox News will not be finished. Too many politicians and bureaucrats owe their careers to Murdoch. They may be able to bring him down in Britain, but IMO he’s untouchable here.