Lying or Standerd Operating Procedure?

The fact that the White House wasted a minute to try to protect Bush with lies from jokes about boring a teenager with a speech is scary enough. For most Presidents, and I think I can say this with some assurance, even if they were angry about being mocked like this, it would be considered too much effort for his people to concoct a lie, sell it to CNN, and retract it without actually retracting it later by claiming that they never said it in the first place. But that was the knee-jerk first reaction of the Bush administration, because it wasn't hard for them--it is Standard Operating Procedure. I can almost picture page one of the Bush Bible O' Spin:

1) Anything said or shown in a negative tone or light about the Magnificent President must automatically be untrue, as He is Infalliable. This is the message that we must maintain at all costs.
2) Therefore, any negative thing said or shown must be corrected immediately. If, for some reason, the negative thing seems to be, as the godless rationlists might put it, "true", then refer to one of our standard spins:
a) This "evidence" must be faked.
b) We have reason to believe that the person making this accusation doesn't like Bush. And anyone who doesn't like the Magnificent President is a heretic, um, I mean, "unpatrioitic" or "doesn't support the troops."
c) We have reason to believe the person making this accusation is a (homosexual, wife-beater, commuter who drives past the homes of Democrats on his daily drive).
3) These utterly transparent spins are being revealed more and more quickly now, often within moments of being used. This is unfortunate, but we must persist in using these spins, because Fox News needs something to repeat ad nauseum for the next two weeks.
4) A retraction may be necessary. Don't panic! Many millions more people will hear the spin than the retraction. If a retraction is necessary, use one of these three standard retractions:
a) We didn't say that. (Best used if the person phoning in the lie bothered to disguise his/her voice and not give a name.)
b) Accuse the person demanding a retraction of being unpatriotic.
c) Repeat after me: "the liberal media". (This phrase works like a dog whistle on Fox News, unifying the attack dogs.)
The important thing to remember is that if we can get the media heads talking about whether or not this or that was true or if so-and-so smokes cock or if the media is really liberal, then the original negative statements, however true, will fade away.

At this point, they rattle through this plan of action so quickly that they don't even realize that they are wasting it on really, really stupid stuff like a yawning kid.