Kill the messenger!

That may as well be the Obama administration's battle cry as they have directed their "political arm" (as if it's really separate from the White House at all) to rile the base by blaming the media for falling down on the job and not debunking GOP "lies" about health care.

Greg Sargant's Plum Line blog has some of the details:

The email from Organizing for America, which was forwarded by a reader, is obviously not addressed to the media and explicitly focuses blames on the press for the traction that reform foes have gained. Hitting the media riles the base, and the email also asks for donations to fund OFA, because "stepping in where the media fails is a daunting challenge."

"Our opponents will create and spread outrageous lies to try to stop President Obama from creating real change," reads the email from OFA chief Mitch Stewart. "We just can't count on the media to debunk them."

The email suggests that the media's failure has helped the "frightening smears" of reform foes seem "pretty convincing," because "folks don't know that they're false." It also quotes Obama's recent denunciation of he-said-she-said journalism:

If somebody puts out misinformation... then the way the news report comes across is, "Today, such-and-such accused President Obama of putting forward death panels. The White House responded that that wasn't true." And then they go on to the next story. And what they don't say is, "In fact, it isn't true."

Needless to say, this particular OFA effort has not been announced to...the media.