When Your Spin Fails

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been focused on government spending lately and it seems as though President Obama also felt the need to look at government spending as well. USNews.com reports that Obama plans to make several changes and cuts to executive spending that will create a savings of $100 million. The problem? Everyone saw through the spin.

In truth the cuts, although welcome by me and every other tax payer, were really a PR stunt to diminish the continuing criticism from Tea Parties and others on government spending. The idea is to create and increase the total number of media stories depicting Obama’s administration as being fiscally responsible to offset the total number of media stories about the administration’s spending.

This strategy was done once already. Immediately following the signing of Obama’s stimulus plan into law, Obama sought to offset all the spending press coverage with fiscal responsibility coverage by holding a Fiscal Responsibility Summit. The media took the bait and began reporting how Obama was going to bring back Clinton’s “spend as you go” fiscal policy.

The summit was obviously a ploy evidenced by the administration’s lack of adherence to the policy in the passage of the Omnibus Bill and Obama’s proposed budget. Today, Obama was looking to offset the continuing focus on the Tea Parties with a half-hearted attempt at fiscal responsibility.

No one’s buying Obama’s spin on this one and the result was Robert Gibbs wiggling from the media sharks in the water. You can see Robert Gibbs Squirm in the accompanying video as he tries to explain why $100 million in cuts is a huge amount, but $8 billion in spending is not.