I know that this is last week’s story .. and that’s just why I’m bringing it up again, because it is last weeks story.  The ObamaMedia seems to have completely forgotten about it and it’s now business as usual … making editorial and reporting decisions that will do as little harm to the reelection chances of media hero and “sort of a God” Barack Obama.

Some of you might not have been around last week … and if I don’t tell you what happened you may never know.  As I said, the story has all but disappeared.  We learn a few things from this media episode … not the least of which is the lengths to which some reporters will go to cover for Obama.  Here’s how weird it gets … last Friday the fact check people at the Washington Post are calling this story false .. .yet just yesterday WaPo columnist Eugene Robinson is reporting it as true.  Go figure.

OK … on to the story:

Last week some writer by the name of Rex Nutting published a column in The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch in which he said that federal spending under Obama had risen at a lower rate than that of any other presidents for the last 60 years.  As soon as this story was published the anchors at MSNBC went positively orgasmic.  Rachael Maddow, Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews --- all of them were literally dancing in the aisles.  There was the proof!  Obama was not a big spender!  Rex Nutting said so!

Then someone actually checked Nutting’s numbers and his methodology and discovered, in a word, that it was complete yak squeeze – though yak squeeze that could be sold to the type of voters predisposed to vote for someone like Obama, and to MSNBC hosts. 

We’ll make this simple.  Nutting war depending on fiscal years for his numbers.  Fiscal years and nothing more.  Obama was elected and sworn in during George Bush’s final fiscal year a president --- a fiscal year that began on October 1, 2008 and ended on September 30, 2009.  Nutting takes all of the spending increases that occurred in that fiscal year to George Bush. But was Obama really responsible for any of that spending in Bush’s final fiscal year?  Here are some facts for you to ponder:

• When Bush left office there was a $410 billion spending bill sitting on his desk.  Bush refused to sign it.  Obama DID sign it, and the bill became law.  The $410 billion in additional spending was credited by Nutting to Bush, who did not sign the spending bill, and not to Obama, who did.

• By the end of Bush’s term the market panic had passed.  There were hundreds of billions of dollars in unspent TARP funds left.  Bush announced that he would NOT spend this money.  Obama, though, asked Bush to release the funds to him.  Bush did so.  Obama spent another $200 billion of Tarp funds before the fiscal year ended.  This spending was credited to Bush, who had said he would not spend it, to Obama, who did. 

• Then there was the stimulus bill.  There’s another $835 billion.  The stimulus bill was passed at Obama’s behest, signed by Obama, and most of the money – all but $140 billion – was gone by the end of the fiscal year.  Again … this spending was credited to Bush.  Nutting did credit the $140 in stimulus spending which occurred after the end of the final Bush fiscal year to Obama.  What a guy! 

Within 24 hours of Nutting’s MarketWatch column his numbers had been completely discredited.  Even, as I said, the Washington Post Fact Checker column gave Nutting’s version of Obama spending record “Three Pinocchios.”  Someone needed to tell Eugene Robinson.  Someone also needed to tell the American people.  Unfortunately, we’re talking about government educated people here, and my guess is that we’ll go right up to the election with millions of Americans falsely believing that Obama isn’t really a big spender.  In the final analysis .. Rex Nutting did his job.