Peter Baker's story in Sunday's New York Times Week In Review section said it all. Calling it "Gibbs-Gate," The Times' top political reporter seized on the lameness of Washington's political establishment last about their obsessive coverage over the oh so obvious comment made by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Meet The Pre ss that the House of Representatives could fall into the hands of the Republican Party, where it had been for 16 years until the Democrats retook it back in 2006.

As ABC's Jake Tapper said, it was an empirical fact that there is the possibility that the Republicans could pick up the 39 seats they need to get to flip the House. It may or may not happen, but it's hardly heretical to actually make the comment.

Yet all week, especially on Fox News, speculation ran wild about what Gibbs was up to, as if speaking the obvious must mean some subterfuge lurking underneath.

This week on Meet the Press, host David Gregory felt it necessary to replay that exchange with Gibbs, and then elicited his panel consisting of the respective campaign heads of the House and Senate from both parties to weigh in on its validity.

Meanwhile, back on ABC's This Week, Vice President Joe Biden, perhaps trying to make up for Gibbs remark, took the other view in response to the question about a GOP resurgence, claiming that the Dems will "shock" the country in terms of how well they perform in November.

BIDEN: I don't think the losses are going to be bad at all. I think we're going to shock the heck out of everybody. I really — and I've been saying this now. I think even when you and I went down to North Carolina and you followed be on the recovery trip, I was saying it then. I am absolutely confidence — confident when people take a look at the what has happened since we've taken office in November and comparing it to the alternative, we're going to be very — we're going to be in great shape.

And for good measure, Biden paraphrased Mark Twain and said reports of the Democrats' demise were "greatly exaggerated."

Back on MTP, Democrats are clearly having fun at the hypocrisy of the Republicans calls for deficit reduction when it comes to tax cuts for the rich. After Arizona's Jon Kyle last week on Fox News Sunday appeared to stun host Chris Wallace when he said it didn't matter to the deficit that maintaining those tax cuts would add $678 billion to the deficit, New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez' seized on those remarks:

SEN. MENENDEZ: Well, the bottom line is what would be a mistake is to add $700 billion of debt to the next generation. You know, when, when the number two Republican in the Senate, Jon Kyl, says, "We don't have to pay for that. We don't have to pay for it," you know, I am tired of listening to the lectures about spending and debt when they wracked up record debt, when they are willing to put $700 billion of debt on the next generation, and when you don't have to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the country, but you can't help working Americans trying to get a job who presently are unemployed.

This article appears in Jul 15-21, 2010.