• Republicans still better at chicken: Speaker Boehner says he’s prepared not to hold a debt limit vote if he’s not getting his way.
• A USA Today/Gallup poll holds some pretty good numbers for Republicans on the budget: 48% support reducing deficits with mostly spending cuts; 37% support a mix of cuts and tax hikes; 11% prefer mostly

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• WikiLeaks drops Gitmo files, though revelations are few. The documents tell the story of what alleged plotters were doing on 9/11.
• The Washington Post reports out the slow death of the effort to close Guantanamo:

• John McCain is on the ground in Benghazi, Libya. Bruce Crumley sees the trip as a bellwether of escalation.
• The war of attrition has slowed.
• Chris Cillizza mulls the possibility that the 2012 GOP field is already ossified.
• Sure, Palin was overcovered and Donald Trump is overcovered, but what jumps out on this chart from Nate

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• The 2011 TIME 100, our list of influentials written by their peers, is out. It’s worth clicking around, but here are a few from our neck of the woods: President Obama on Gabby Giffords, Scott Walker on Paul Ryan, Oprah on Cory Booker, Mitch Daniels on Chris Christie, Rahm Emanuel on Joe Biden, Rush Limbaugh on Michele Bachmann,

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• Obama will bring his political balancing act to the Facebook campus today. The Journal reports talks between Robert Gibbs and the company have fallen apart.
• Stan Collender thinks the Congress needs to get an initial failed debt ceiling vote out of the way to give cover for inevitable passage.
• Democratic independent expenditure

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• Obama kicks off the reelection tour with a trip out west to sell his deficit plan.
• Paul Krugman puts on his warpaint.
• Tim Geithner sounds like he’s in for the long haul, which is pretty amazing considering where he started out in the Obama administration.
• Tim Pawlenty, for all his real conservative governing credentials, sounds

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President Obama is introduced by Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel at a Democratic Party fundraiser in Chicago on April 14. (REUTERS/Jason Reed)

• The White House is pushing the Senate’s bipartisan Gang of Six to expedite the rollout of its deficit reduction plan, but it still strikes me as implausible that any kind of fiscal

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President Obama as seen through a teleprompter as he delivers a speech on U.S. fiscal and budgetary deficit policy at the George Washington University on April 13. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

–If you needed more evidence that squabbling over short-term discretionary spending is a joke, the CBO finds those vaunted $38 billion in cuts …

President Obama closes his eyes as first lady Michelle Obama speaks at the White House on April 12. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

–President Obama will give his speech on long-term deficits at 1:35 pm today. In addition to revisiting some elements of Simpson-Bowles, Marc Ambinder reports Obama’s vision will be one of contrast with …

D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray is arrested in front of the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Monday, April 11. (Bill Clark/Roll Call)

–President Obama will use the Simpson-Bowles commission report as a framework for the deficit reduction plan he’s set to unveil Wednesday afternoon. Starting from the center will only exacerbate liberal …

President Obama sprints up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to visit with tourists on April 9, a day after Congress came to agreement on funding the federal government. (REUTERS/Mike Theiler)

–A 2011 budget deal may be done, or at least a compromise number reached and some riders ruled out, but lawmakers are still working out …

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner speak to reporters after meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House on April 6. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

–No deal to avert a shutdown yet. President Obama called for a “sense of urgency from all parties involved” after his late Wednesday night meeting …