Obama's big announcement of $17 billion in budget cuts is generating snickers across the political spectrum. Here's Alex Koppleman of Salon:

On Thursday -- and not for the first time -- the Obama administration did its best to hype a relatively small cut in the federal budget as if it would make a truly significant dent in the national debt. Once again, and for good reason, no one's buying it.

And Brian Montopoli of CBS News notes that after initial news of the cuts "landed with a bit of a thud" in the press, Obama went out of his way during his remarks to tell reporters how they should cover the news:

In his remarks today, the president sought to change that tenor of that coverage. He mocked the notion that smaller savings are considered "trivial" in Washington and stressed that "these savings, large and small, add up."

And he told journalists directly that they should stress the fact that the cuts are "significant" – a surprisingly direct appeal to reporters concerning which angle they should take in their coverage.

"It is important, though, for all of you, as you're writing up these stories, to recognize that $17 billion taken out of our discretionary, non-defense budget, as well as portions of our defense budget, are significant," he said. "They mean something."

I suppose offering suggestions to the press on what to write is better than bullying private investors.  Then again, if the government decides to get involved in bailing out newspapers, all bets are off.

Correction: The original version of the post incorrectly credited the Salon quote to Glenn Greenwald.