It's Throwback Thursday, and looking back to August of 2008, when Republican Nominee John McCain forgot how many houses he owns while on the campaign trail.

Let me repeat that: The nominee forgot how many houses he owns.

This wasn't some liberal blogger gotcha question either. This was during an interview with Politico.

Who should come to McCain's rescue on the Sunday shows but professional GOP boot-licker Mark Halperin. Halperin claims that if McCain forgetting how many houses he owns elicits an "attack" from the Obama camp, that "opens up" the dialogue to include potential Obama problems with Tony Rezko and Bill Ayers.

Halperin: " My hunch is that this is going to end up being one of the worst moments in the entire campaign for one of the candidates, but it's Barack Obama. I believe this has opened the door to not just Tony Rezko in that ad, but to bring up Reverend Wright, to bring up his relationship with Bill Ayers. I think that the Obama campaign agressively jumped on something -"

Stephanopolous: "Don't you think that was going to come up anyway?"

Indeed, even Cokie Roberts can't fathom Halperin's "logic."

Roberts: "But the housing is about the economy. It's a metaphor for the economy."

It's such a mind-boggling spin that "Great News for John McCain" is now shorthand for any time a pundit exposes his bias with an over-the-top jump in logic.

It's also our nickname for Mark Halperin.