Watching Gene Sperling on all of the weekend talk shows to spin the sequester reminded me of Susan Rice’s Benghazi talk-show spinarama last September. The Sperling-Obama line that the sequester is really going to hurt, just you wait, is being openly mocked today by the liberal media. I’ve just been watching ten minutes of guffawing over sequester hype — complete with video reminders of White House lies coming from the president (pay cuts for Hill custodians), education secretary Arne Duncan (“pink slips” for West Virginia teachers), and transportation secretary Ray LaHood (air-traffic-control closures) — all on the usually White House–friendly Morning Joe. Maybe they feel like they’ve been had. They, and the rest of us, have been played and now the White House is looking as silly as Sperling did in his trio of carefully orchestrated talk-show spin-fests.

The Republicans and John Boehner have regained some of the ground that they lost in the post-election media battle with the president. The House will pass a bill this week to avoid a government shutdown caused by the March 27 expiration of the continuing resolution. The president, who has yet to propose a budget, says he wants to avoid talk of a shutdown. Let’s see if Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats will actually move shutdown-preempting legislation in time to avoid another confidence-shaking fiscal fiasco.

Don’t count on it.