DNC Committeeman Robert Zimmerman recently dropped a biting tabloid news story into his criticism of Democrats' recent electoral failures, saying for the second time in the past few weeks that the White House communications effort was so poor that it "couldn't sell cocaine to Charlie Sheen."
The pop reference came as Zimmerman discussed his beliefs that the White House had utterly failed to broadcast the successes of Democratic legislation in the first two years of Obama's presidency.
While the CNN hosts moderating the discussion between Zimmerman and others appeared to try to brush aside the Democratic strategist's sensational observation during its second iteration, he elaborated on his statement the first time he gave it, saying that the White House would need to work on making itself a more effective two-way channel for communications in the future.
"I think part of this administration going forward is to listen more to the American people's priorities and focus on jobs," Zimmerman said.
The president himself noted as much in a recent interview with CBS's "60 Minutes," albeit without the direct metaphorical comparison to a movie star's drug-fueled bender in New York City.
"What I didn't effectively, I think, drive home, because we were in such a rush to get this stuff done, is that we were taking these steps not because of some theory that we wanted to expand government," Obama said on "60 Minutes" Sunday. "It was because we had an emergency situation and we wanted to make sure the economy didn't go off a cliff."