White House Forgets That You Don't Tug On Superman's Cape

Right now CNBC's Rick Santelli is the superman of the housing bailout debate after his well-publicized rant about bailing out losers went viral yesterday. He clearly did some damage to Obama and the public perception of the housing plan, and today press secretary Robert Gibbs, who often makes Scott McClellan look brilliant, made the mistake of attacking Santelli personally:

The White House is lashing out publicly and personally at a CNBC reporter whose attack on President Barack Obama’s anti-foreclosure plan caught fire on the Internet on Thursday.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs jumped at the chance to go after the CNBC journalist, Rick Santelli, when a question about his bracing critique was asked at Friday’s news briefing.

“I’ve watched Mr. Santelli on cable the past 24 hours or so. I’m not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives or in what house he lives but the American people are struggling every day to meet their mortgages, stay in their jobs, pay their bills, send their kids to school,” Gibbs said. “I think we left a few months ago the adage that if it was good for a derivatives trader that it was good for Main Street. I think the verdict is in on that,” the press secretary said, poking directly at the cable journalist, who reports from the trading floor at the Chicago Board of Trade.

Gibbs insisted Santelli was misinformed when he said Obama’s program would amount to a transfer of money from prudent taxpayers to those who had taken reckless risks.

“Mr. Santelli has argued, I think quite wrongly, that this plan won’t help everyone,” Gibbs said. “This plan helps people who have been playing by the rules. ... I would encouraged him to read the president’s plan. ... I’d be more than happy to have him come here to read it. I’d be happy to buy him a cup of coffee — decaf,” the press secretary said, in a not-so-subtle jab at Santelli’s frantic style.

Gibbs brandished a copy of a fact sheet about Obama’s plan. “Download it, hit print, and begin to read it,” he said. In an unusually personal and direct attack on a specific journalist, Gibbs used Santelli’s name at least five times.

The proper way to deal with a critic who has hurt you like Santelli hurt Obama is to dismiss his criticism and move on. Dwelling on it like Gibbs did simply reinforces the idea that Santelli is on to something with his charges and will only draw increased attention to them as the press predictably goes back to Santelli for his reaction.

The White House will not win this spitting war, especially as public support for Santelli and his opinion rapidly escalates. Various groups are already planning to follow through with the Chicago Tea Party proposed by Santelli, and I'm guessing that on July 4th that will be the place to be.

I just looked at Facebook and right now there are 30 different Santelli fan pages or Tea Party pages, and I see that at least three events are being planned for July 4th in Boston, Chicago and Santa Monica. Of course, this could all fizzle, but these things have a way of catching on.