NP: Genius playlist from "Satch Boogie" (Joe Satriani)

Two stories in today's Washington Post caught my eye. First, there's this news that Harry Reid is signaling that he may pare down the current proposal for a Senate jobs bill to a few small pieces that garner that mythical bipartisan support. As you might expect, this has the left up in arms about how a small, ineffective jobs bill is the worst of all possible outcomes, in part because the Democrats will get blamed if and when it doesn't actually create any jobs, as some have speculated.

Now, maybe I'm giving the Democratic Party too much credit, but maybe they've taken the consensus view on the only way forward for health care reform to heart. Which is to say, get the core pieces through the Senate in a watered-down bill that can break 60 votes, then push what they really want through reconciliation. And if you're going to do that, you're better off not signaling it in advance. Something to watch, anyway.

Then there's the White House economic forecast that predicts fairly crappy unemployment numbers for a while yet. This is a low-risk bet. If those numbers are right, you're screwed anyway. But on the other hand, the upside of "better than expected numbers" is pretty high. So it seems like a smart move to guess low.

Just speculation on both stories, but it was instinctively the first thing that crossed my mind about them.

UPDATE: That's what I get for posting first impressions. What I've been reading is that Reid hasn't necessarily been taking out anything that would make the bill more palatable to Republicans. It's been more about taking out parts that looked to have no discernible effect on job creation, with a focus on getting something done quickly to show responsiveness from Congress. Other measures would presumably come later. I don't have a strong opinion on the piecemeal approach in this instance, but I do still wonder if reconciliation might be a part of it.