10 years ago this tactic would have worked in the first week.
It’s a modern world. The media and the est. politicians keep forgetting that.
According to Ann Coulter’s article on the same topic, it seems to have worked very well recently for Obama and his team:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=47438
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2805774/posts