I mean, it's not enough to say this is a salary freeze, which it is. Instead this whacky liberal journalist has to invent the notion of "slashing" a raise.
On top of a fat 3.1% raise in a depressed economy, federal employees would have gotten a bonus based on the increase in the corresponding private-sector wage. And the fact that they won't get this extra increase is cause for hysteria among the big-government liberal crowd.
Hoping to teach our mean ol' president a lesson, Jennifer blasts Bush throughout the article. It's "[a] blow to federal workers" -- Oh no, don't touch the fat federal bureaucracy!
Since the White House "quietly released the letter...[during] a long holiday weekend", Jennifer must have stumbled on Watergate 2002. Perhaps Jennifer wants the White House to kick back, relax and stop working during Thanksgiving -- ample fodder for a scathing AP expose on the lethargy of turkey-stuffed White House staffers, no doubt.
And the best part is buried deep in the article, where Jennifer embarrassingly includes the fact that these "slashed" increases almost never go into effect anyway.
In light of these facts, let me suggest a more accurate headline: