But Mr. Cruise has done so much damage to his image that his camp's best efforts at spin now seem hollow.

The governor made an attempt at postdebate spin that was a good example of the modern politician in full ordinary-guy mode.

This is the most pathetic and asinine attempt at spin I have seen in a while.

I have decades of experience in sales and PR and I'm highly adept at spin.

The book's final upbeat word on publicity, though, is that "tabloid smears can't damage me," a line that is one of his less convincing efforts at spin.

It coursed through him like an electric current, filling him with pulsing flashes of juice, set him humming like a dynamo at full spin.

"Stewart is very successful at spin," said Austin Sarat, a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College.

I won fifty gold solids from him that night at spin, because he stared so much, he never looked at his tiles.

A celebrity news and gossip site like TMZ (tmz.com) can be funnier than any attempt at comic spin.

But in their case the argument too often sounds forced, too transparently an effort at star-making spin.