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Obama Tells It Like It Is

It looks like the New York Times has temporarily taken this version of its stimulus-negotiation piece down for some reason. But the version I read on my BlackBerry this morning included the following priceless nugget, which teases out an exchange between Obama and congressional Republicans mentioned yesterday in the Politico:

Mr. Cantor [the House minority whip], in an interview later, had a similar recollection. He said the president had told him, "You're correct, there's a philosophical difference, but I won, so we're going to prevail on that."

"He was very straightforward," Mr. Cantor added. "There was no disrespect, but it was very matter-of-fact."

In case anyone was inclined to mistake Obama's bipartisanship for substantive squishiness...

P.S. For what it's worth, the issue was whether or not to make the worker tax credit refundable.

Update: Ah, here's the piece.

--Noam Scheiber