A Three-Year Pay Freeze? Not Really.

In his radio address Saturday, President Obama touted the "tough choices" he's made in the budget process, saying, for example, that he had "frozen salaries for hard-working civil servants for three years."

The Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe took note of that phrasing today, pointing out that Obama had only announced a two-year freeze back in November. White House aides told O'Keefe that Obama was not making a below-the-radar pitch for extending the freeze. He was simply conflating the governmentwide freeze with a freeze on salaries for senior White House officials that started in 2010. Altogether, according to Obama's logic, that makes for three years worth of freezes of one sort or another.