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Once again, E.J. Dionne is right on the money. Well worth a read of the whole thing.

The Politics of Payoff (washingtonpost.com):
"President Bush likes to talk about the need for 'fiscal sanity in Washington.' His decision to run up the national debt is entirely sane -- as long as you understand his real purpose. Bush doesn't care a whit about deficits. That's because he is not a fiscal conservative. He is a political conservative out to buy himself a majority in 2004 and spending the next generation's money to do it."