Asserting that Obama’s “stimulus plan has lost its luster,” CNN contributor Carol Costello repeated without challenge a claim she called “effective Republican spin” — that spending in the pending Democratic economic recovery bills is not stimulus. She did not point out in rebutting the “effective Republican spin” what numerous economists have noted: that, as Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said, “[s]pending is stimulus. Any spending will generate jobs. It…
