Kudos for this one to the spin doctor in chief: The fact that he managed to get through it with a straight face after the week we’ve had, on the very day when The One told his opponents to shut up and get out of his way, is a sign of a true master PR flack at work. My only quibble with Tapper’s question and follow-up is that he wasn’t as comprehensive as he might have been. It was Pelosi who jump-started the Nazi meme with her idiotic comment about astroturfers carrying swastikas and it was lefty journo Bill Press who accused conservatives of following the Hitler playbook. And that only accounts for invective that explicitly invoked Nazism; if he broadened the question to more general accusations of racism against Republicans, he would have been there all day.

Exit question: By “taking the temperature down a bit,” does Gibbs mean having union goons stomp on people who are handing out flags?