Nevermind Klein, Tapper Weighs In.

And calls foul on a bit of deceit in DNC ads insinuating that just because Mitt Romney did not support Obama's brand of stimulus -- "a Christmas tree of all of the favors for various politicians who have helped out the Obama campaign, giving them special projects." (remember Solyandra!) -- he rejected all calls for sensible spending and stimulus.

When asked how it justified the use of this quote, a DNC official said that “Mitt Romney supported a stimulus approach nearly identical in size and scope to what President Obama eventually passed and now he’s lead primary voters to believe he never supported any stimulus at all.”

Did he? Where did he do that?

The DNC official pointed out that on Morning Joe on January 16, 2009, Romney said, “in my view, the president’s willingness, his rhetoric to say, look, he’s going to reach across the aisle, he wants to seek the input from members of our party — that’s a very encouraging sign. The president’s plan for economic recovery, including a stimulus bill which includes a very healthy dose of tax reductions, is something which I think showed a willingness to actually listen to some of his own economic advisers that have pointed out in their research that tax reductions have a bigger economic stimulus impact than spending money on infrastructure does.”

Moreover, the Democrat said, on Meet the Press on December 13, 2008, Romney said “the government is going to have to step forward, not only with monetary policy to add funding and capital to the capital markets so we see more lending, but also for additional spending and lower taxes.”

In other words: he didn’t. Romney saying he supports the concept of stimulus is not the same thing as saying he supports President Obama’s stimulus bill. The DNC got greedy here. The use of that Romney quote is deceptive and false.

-Jake Tapper

Aside: I always thought Christiane Amanpour was more qualified to lead This Week, though Tapper had a nice turn in the interim. She simply shines on international issues, a woefully weak area as currently covered in American news.

But that's taking nothing away from Tapper's career. He's no Ezra Klein -- a shooting star journolist -- an expert organizer, and all-around career-oriented kid (no matter the career, or the accepted ethics) ... David Brooks coined the term years ago for the likes of Klein's career-ambitions-exceeding-intellectual-grasp: an Organization Kid.