Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush

There was a time not long ago when to spin a yarn, or to spin a tale, meant to invent something outright, usually exaggerated or outrageous. Now "spin" has become business-as-usual for our political class. It's come to mean to reshape a story to one's own advantage, and as such involves a large amount of distortion. To this day the spinmeister supreme was Richard Nixon's press secretary during the Watergate days. Once asked in his daily press briefing about the latest bombshell to land in the predsident's camp he replied, "that's so ridiculous I won't even bother to deny it." Within hours the story was proved to be true. Confronted next day by reporters, Zeigler answered, "well, I never denied it."