Tapper Exposes White House's "100 Days, 100 Projects" Fabrication, Severely Embellishes Accomplishments

Here is a patial transcript from the conversation between ABC's Jake Tapper and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. Tapper pointed out an embellishment in the booklet that the White House released to brag about the "successes" of the Recovery Act after 100 days:

Tapper: I looked at your "100 Days, 100 Projects" booklet yesterday, and the very first one says, quote, "Using $27 million of Recovery Act funding a public housing development in D.C., the Regency House, has undergone a green retrofit.  As part of this upgrade, the building installed solar panels, green roof, rainwater collection system, energy-efficient lighting, as well as water-conserving toilets, showerheads and faucets." But when I called the D.C. Housing Authority, they said only $59,000 was spent of stimulus money, not $27 million, and of these seven things mentioned, only two of the seven were actually done --

GIBBS:  I think the mistake -- mistake in that one, as you blogged about earlier, took a series of different projects in a cut- and-paste into one.

TAPPER:  OK.  So it wasn't as clear and -- it wasn't as accurate as it could have been?

GIBBS:  I -- I think that's accurate to say, yes.

"It wasn't as accurate as it could have been?" That is not just a slight understatement. It was an outright lie and total misrepresentation of the truth.

There is a huge difference between $27 M and $59 K. It's not just a slight miscalculation. Also, their claim of seven projects finished is a complete fabrication.

Obama's White House seems to be trying to rewrite history to make himself look good. Most of the press is so in love with him that they don't even think to thouroughly investigate his claims.

I understand why he feels like must do this. His stimulus package is a complete boondoggle, and everyone knows it. Now, he must do his best to portray it as beneficial to the economy when most of the evidence suggests otherwise.

After all, his porkulus package isn't even stimulus by definition. Stimulus is supposed to be that a massive amount of money is thrown into the economy in a short amount of time. The reality is that most of the money won't be spent for years.

Gibbs Scoffs at Loven's Criticism, Obama's $100 Million Budget Cutback Is A Lot Where I Come From

The AP's Jennifer Loven, usually liberally biased, actually asked a tough question to Obama press secretary, Robert Gibbs. She asked why is the amount of cuts Obama is proposing, $100 million, so small in comparison to the $3.5 trillion federal budget. Gibbs couldn't hold his amusement in while giving a ludicrous response. Although, to give Gibbs a little understanding, what else could he say:

GIBBS:  (Smiling) Well, I think only in Washington, D.C. is a hundred million dollars...

LOVEN:  The deficit's very large.  It's not a joke.

GIBBS:  No, I'm...

LOVEN:  The deficit's giant.  $100 million really is only a step.

GIBBS:  But no joke.

LOVEN:  You sound like you're joking about it, but it's not funny.

GIBBS:  I'm not making jokes about it.  I'm being completely sincere that only in Washington, D.C. is $100 million not a lot of money.  It is where I'm from.  It is where I grew up.  And I think it is for hundreds of millions of Americans.

It's quite a bit of money to me, too. However, we aren't talking about $100 million in Gibbs' hometown or mine. We are talking about Washington DC. They work on trillion dollar budgets. We work on thousand dollar budgets. There is a huge difference in between anytown, USA and DC. Can't Gibbs see that, or is he just trying to blow smoke?

Jack Tapper asked Gibbs a follow-up question. He basically asked how can $100 million be a lot and $8 billion small? What was Gibbs' response this time?

His answer was that it is a step in the right direction, and cutting $100 million here and $100 million there will add up to cancel out the $1.3 trillion deficit. By my calculations, it take about 1,300 of those small steps to cancel out the budget deficit.

The timetable that Obama gave the various departments to take this "step" was 90 days. If he continues on this timetable of cutting $100 million every 90 days, it would take Obama about 325 years to wipe out the deficit. Last time I checked, he only has 4 years, or 8 at most, to cut the budget deficit in half as he promised. At this pace, even cutting it in half will take well over 100 years. He doesn't have that long. He has to come up with a bigger number as Jennifer Loven suggested.