Sensing that the New York Times story cast them in the roles of desperate partisans, the Obami are denying the report that they are planning an ad campaign to paint the Tea Partiers as extremists. Politico reports:

The story is “100 percent inaccurate,” a White House official told POLITICO. Times Washington Bureau Chief Dean Baquet counters that the “piece is accurate.”

OK, in a credibility contest between the Gray Lady and the Obama administration, it’s a close call. But really, is the White House denying that it isn’t contemplating such an ad offensive? That seems remarkable. Maybe it rejected it, or the proponents of such a strategy are embarrassed, but I find the denial a bit Clintonesque: “The first time Obama’s advisers heard about a national ad campaign is when the story showed up on the Times’ website last night.” But the concept — to paint the Tea Partiers as wackos — is certainly being deployed by Obama spinners and will, I strongly suspect, come up in ads in individual races.

The White House now has the worst of both worlds. The media and the voters get the sense that the Obama brain trust is defensive and panicky. If the ads run, this confirms the original story and makes the Obama team — shocking! — look less than candid. And if the ads don’t run, the liberal base is miffed, and the Tea Party claims another victory. As with so much in the Obama White House, the political operatives have managed to put themselves in a lose-lose position.