The Obama administration delivered bad news on Friday, as is its habit, about the $1.4 trillion federal budget deficit. The Washington Post dutifully reported the bad news for its huge Saturday-morning readership. But it also wants to spread a little good cheer. Cue “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” for the second graf:

Still, the figure represents a significant improvement over the darkest deficit projections, which had been as much as $400 billion higher earlier this year, when the economy was wallowing in recession. Since then, the outlook has brightened and a government bailout has successfully stabilized the nation’s troubled financial sector. In a report released Friday, Treasury Department officials said the government had spent $132 billion less than expected in August, due primarily to a drop in anticipated spending on the banking bailout.