Dana Perino has one simple question for President Obama -- who today said that “middle-class tax cuts were being held hostage to the high-end tax cuts” and that it was “tempting not to negotiate with hostage-takers.”

“Who,” Perino asked, “writes these kind of things, and then who actually says them?”

Well, there's Dana Perino. She definitely says these kind of things.

In March 2007, Senate Democrats were weighing a bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while setting a deadline to begin troop withdrawals from Iraq. The White House threatened to veto.

Or, in the words of then-press secretary Dana Perino, Democrats were holding the funding for the troops hostage:

PERINO: The war supplemental should remain focused on the needs of the troops, and should not be used as a vehicle for added non-emergency spending and policy proposals, especially domestic proposals, which should be fully vetted and considered on their own merits. This bill adds billions in unrequested spending that is largely unjustified and non-emergency. And because of the excessive and extraneous non-emergency spending it contains, if this legislation were presented to the President, he would veto the bill.

Congress should reject this legislation and promptly send the President a responsible bill that provides the funding and flexibility our troops need, and without holding funding for the troops hostage to unrelated spending.

And with that, I'll go to questions. Jennifer.