Senator Barack H. Obama, March 2006.
The Quote of the Decade:
The fact that we are here today to debate raising America ‘s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America ‘s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that, “the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”
(…it was so nice of him to give us this great quote for posterity!)
H/T Tom
Sidewalks Chalk 
Labor Department spends stimulus funds for ads during Olbermann, Maddow shows
The Labor Department paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal stimulus funds to a public relations firm to run more than 100 commercials touting the Obama administration’s “green training” job efforts on two MSNBC cable shows, records show.
The commercials ran on MSNBC on shows hosted by Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann in 2009, but the contract didn’t report any jobs created, according to records reviewed recently by The Washington Times.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/21/stimulus-funds-spent-obama-ads-olbermann-maddow/
Team Obama wanted to replace Super PAC head Bill Burton with…Robert Gibbs
Oh, imagine the cancer ads Press Secretary Peter Griffin could have produced!
“Obama’s Last Stand,” an e-book by Politico’s Glenn Thrush released this week, documents the transition of Team Hope and Change to the dispiriting campaign it has become, starting from the time the president realized in 2011 he couldn’t run on his record.
In it we find the president concerned about the damage an allied Super PAC could do to his above-the-fray brand and underestimating the damage opposing Super PACs could do to his reelection hopes. After using his 2011 State of the Union address to hammer the Supreme Court, to their faces, for “reversing a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests— including foreign companies— to spend without limit in our elections,” pivoting to Super PAC support was not on Obama’s to-do list, though Rahm Emanuel and campaign manager Jim Messina pushed him.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/21/team-obama-wanted-to-replace-super-pac-head-bill-burton-with-robert-gibbs/
White House Sets Ground Rules for Local Interviews
The White House is doing something with its local TV interviews that it could not easily get away with in encounters with the White House press corps, which President Obama has been studiously ignoring: choosing the topic about which President Obama and the reporter will talk.
In interviews with three local TV stations Monday, two from states critical to Obama’s reelection effort, Obama held forth on the possibility of “sequestration” if he and Congress fail to reach a budget deal, allowing him to make his favorite political point that Republicans are willing to cause grievous harm to the economy and jobs in order to protect the rich from tax increases.
http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2012/08/21/white-house-sets-ground-rules-local-interviews/
Deal or no deal? GOP back to drawing board on debt plan after Obama meeting
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/11/boehner-pitches-short-term-debt-ceiling-hike-ahead-white-house-meeting/?intcmp=trending