In the Times today, Edmund Andrews we’ve known for some time now — namely, that the administration’s fraudulent deficit-cutting “plan” is unlikely to lead to substantial deficit reduction.

But what’s strange is that the administration and prominent conservatives are conceding more and more factual ground after years of up-is-downism (like Bush’s claim that the 2001 tax cut reduced the deficit).

First, as Josh Marshall points out, Vice President Cheney conceded that private accounts require massive long-term borrowing, saying on “Fox News Sunday,” “We’re going to borrow $758 [b]illion over the next 10 years to set up the personal retirement accounts. We think that’s a manageable amount … Trillions more after that.”

OMB spokesman Chad Kolton told Andrews that the administration’s alleged plan remains operative, which is to be expected, but check out the Heritage Foundation’s Brian Reidl blatantly contradicting the administration:

Even Mr. Bush’s conservative allies have warned that those inflows will not be enough to cover the continued growth in overall government spending. Brian Riedl, budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group here, estimated that deficits would remain around $400 billion through 2009 if current spending trends on Iraq and major benefit programs continued.

For Mr. Bush to fulfill his promise of cutting the deficit in half by 2009, Mr. Riedl said, the president would have to cut $200 billion from domestic programs that now cost less than $500 billion a year.

“There is no way you can reach that goal by cutting only discretionary spending,” Mr. Riedl said. “You have to go after entitlements as well.”

And a senior administration official recently conceded that private accounts would not alleviate the Social Security funding gap.

What’s going on? Are the facts no longer biased? Is the administration rejoining the “reality-based community” instead of “creating other new realities”? Inquiring minds want to know.

(If I had to guess, these admissions will spark a run of bad press, and the candor will soon cease. This is what happened in the aftermath of the war in Iraq when the administration briefly offered concessions on the “sixteen words” about uranium from Niger.)