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Doomsday averted everywhere but Poland

The big news here in Philadelphia is the last-minute passage of the bill in Harrisburg allowing City Hall to impose what is on the books for now anyway as a temporary sales tax increase and take other measure to avert the doomsday scenario that would close libraries and health clinics and layoff cops, etc. The potential closing of the Free Library, in particular, has been a cause celebre in the sphere 'o blogs, but the reason that I never blogged about it is...I knew that it would never happen.

This kind of brinksmanship is Politics 101, and they teach it in the first week. An elected official who cuts services is in political trouble, but a public official who fights to reduce supposed drastic cuts into the more palatable ones that he was really planning all along is now "a savior." (Same, in reverse, with transit fares, which are always supposed to double until the wise elected official steps in and holds it to "only" a 40 percent increase.) Now, all the economy has to do is recover somewhat between now and 2011 and Mayor Nutter is guaranteed re-election, even though there's still some residual ill will from his lack of transparency at the start of all of this. At least Nutter didn't resort to a sleazeball tactic like this when he won the last time.

Speaking of Poland, here's a less hysterical, reality-based interpretation of Obama's much-ballyhooed missile defense moves in Eastern Europe.