Washington in 60 Seconds: Obama Wants Total Freeze on (Some) Federal Spending

Good morning, Capitolists! After sort of a blah day yesterday, we awoke to a bountiful buffet of breakfast headlines, including Rep. Michele Bachmann's plans to reform health care for freedom-loving patriots; pedicure-loving Harold Ford Jr. saying he's "a little bit country"; and President Obama promising to freeze federal spending while he pushes through a trillion-dollar health care bill. Irony or good government? You be the judge.

All of that and more is waiting for you in the next 60 seconds.

* A Total Freeze on (Some) Federal Spending. Lori Montgomery at the Washington Post has the details on a proposal that the president will include in his State of the Union address to freeze federal spending for three years. The proposal will not apply to entitlements, defense spending, the remainder of the $787 bill stimulus, the proposed $80 billion jobs bill moving through the Senate, nor the proposed health care reform bill.

* Oyez, Oyez, Hoyer! House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer will roll out the Democrats' legislative agenda for the year in a speech to the National Press Club this morning. Watch it live at 9 on C-SPAN 2, or come back to the Capitolist today and we'll tell you what he said.

* Hope, With a Side of F-Bombs. The frustration of liberal groups with the administration is well known, but Peter Wallsten of The Wall Street Journal reports that the exact focus of the lefties' ire is with Rahm Emanuel, the White House's ruthlessly transactional chief of staff. Wallsten recounts a meeting between progressives and Emanuel, when he called one of their strategies "f---ing retarded." Those groups now call Emanuel "Obama's Dick Cheney" and want him out.

* Bachmannalia. After a drought of Rep. Michele Bachmann news, the congresswoman is unveiling her very own "Declaration of Health Care Independence" this week. She'll hold a press conference on Capitol Hill Wednesday to pre-but the president's State of the Union address, but gave her home state press a preview yesterday. The Star Tribune has the details of the newser, but Glenn Thrush at Politico has the leaked plan itself (including this warning: "DO NOT SEND THIS TO ANYONE") and the congresswoman's preamble citing the Founding Fathers, health care and "the blessings of liberty."

* Ford Hits the Skids. It's hard to tell whose side the New York press is on when they keep giving Senate hopeful Harold Ford Jr. so many chances to speak his mind -- the surest way to sink his budding candidacy. The New York Post invited him on its radio show yesterday, where he called Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand "a parakeet" for the administration and claimed to be the victim of a "schmear" campaign. Asked if he meant "smear," the former Tennessee congressman joked of New Yorkers: "y'all talk funny." The prep-school-educated Wall Street executive added, "I'm a little bit country, I apologize."