White House economic adviser Dr. Austan Goolsbee tried using a few Jedi mind tricks on Chris Wallace in an appearance yesterday on Fox News Sunday. Goolsbee tried trotting out an old line with a new twist — that the deficits we now see are the fault of George Bush, and that Barack Obama has completely eliminated “budget tricks” that used to hide its full extent. Of course, that $800 billion Porkulus and the budget increases pushed by this White House has nothing to do with it, and these are not the droids you seek:

First, the real budget trick is the refusal of the federal government to show its true long-term entitlement commitments, which the Obama administration has adopted without a peep. Beyond that, though, we already know that the Democrats have expanded the shell games on the budget, not eliminated them. And it’s worth pointing out that Bush didn’t sign off on the 2009 budget, because the Democrats refused to pass it before Obama took office, instead extending the status quo spending levels through interim supplementals. The 2009 budget belongs entirely to the Democrats.

Next, Goolsbee actually departs from Orwellian doublespeak to reemphasize what we already know about government interventions:

Of course the government will tell businesses how to run their operations, once they’ve accepted federal dollars! But that wasn’t what Wallace was asking; he wondered why the government thought they could tell everyone else how to structure their compensation, especially through a pay czar. Goolsbee did a nifty little dance around that.

Finally, The Corner points out the laughable spin the White House is trying to put on the horrendous unemployment numbers:

Goolsbee then laughably intimated that the steep jump in the jobless rate could be attributable to hopeful signs that the economy is improving. Huh? See if you can follow this: he says flashes of hope that we are on the verge of a revival have purportedly caused previously uncounted jobless people to seek (but not find) work — that is, they waited out prosperous times, deciding to leap into the job hunt only when hundreds of thousands of heretofore gainfully employed people got pink-slipped and began competing for a declining pool of jobs. Of course, why shouldn’t Goolsbee think he can get away with these fables when the Obamedia has taken to repeating them verbatim? Witness the headline on page one of yesterday’s Wall Street Journal: “Slower Job Losses Lift Hopes” — I’m sure that’s exactly the headline Bush would have gotten after a half-point jump in an already sky-rocketing jobless rate.

Got that? Joblessness is really a sign of a great economy! War is really peace! We were always never at war with Eastasia, Winston! Just sit back at the Starbucks, let the bullet enter the brain, and admit you love Big Brother ….

The BlogProf has more.

Update: I erred in not linking to Keith Hennessey’s detailed rebuttal earlier.  Be sure to read it all.