Yep. This is our press at work.

Okay, look: I know why Michael Steele said what he said about government jobs (or, if you’re Steele, “jobs”) and why the Republicans repeat outrageous things over and over. Because it works. Not so much because it works on the general public, but because our traditional media is so lazy and weak-minded that if the Republicans repeat something enough times, even something as baffling as “the government doesn’t create jobs,” they’ll just go ahead and pick it up and pretend it’s fact.

But it’s still so depressing to see it happen right in front of you.

Here’s CNN’s John King, talking to a guest about stimulus projects:

One mayor I talked to this past week, for example, says he wants to use some of this money to build a new wave pool in his community, with a water slide. He says it creates jobs– is that the kind of project that passes your sniff test?

(emphasis King’s)

We can talk about whether or not we should be using stimulus money to build wave pools. Fine. I don’t mind if we have that discussion. But King asks the question as if there’s a possibility that building something doesn’t create any jobs. How does he think these things get built? Water park fairies?

(While we’re at it, how cool would that be? Do the water park fairy chant and all of a sudden a couple of them show up and make a wave pool for you in your backyard. How do we get some of these?)

See the video at Media Matters. (Of King, not of the fairies. They have yet to be caught on video, but the one who snags that will be rich! Rich, I tell you!)