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Barack and Michelle Obama were at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery Monday in D.C. for the unveiling of their portraits. Obama's painting features the official flower of Chicago and African blue lilies are a nod to his late Kenyan-born father, Barack Sr. The painting will join the “America’s Presidents” exhibition and will be available for public viewing beginning Tuesday.

hmmmmmmmmm

Not an absurd claim on its face — in theory, the more people hate “Washington” generally, the more all relevant players should suffer — but it’s astounding to think this is the same guy who swore up and down on the trail that he was going to transform the way D.C. does business. Three years ago his message was, “Elect me and strike a blow for hope.” Now his message is, “Reelect me because Congress is hopeless.” Now that’s Change. CBS’s edit of the interview doesn’t include Obama’s full answer so here it is in the interest of fairness: Mason:...

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Monday he inherited much of the country's problems with high debt and deficits when he entered the White House, sounding a theme likely to dominate his 2012 re-election campaign. Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser, Obama also defended his economic record and noted that problems in Europe were affecting the United States.

UPDATE: Dow down 460 at 2:00 est. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is taking a beating as President Obama continues to speak. Towards the beginning of his speech, the index was down 375 points. As I write now it is down 450. Obama's blaming of everyone else and trotting out the same old "solutions" are not helping. The S&P average is down a total of 5% on the day. The NASDAQ is also down 5% on the day. This is becoming a run. We need leadership now. In addition, between the time he announced the speech and gave it, the...

An uncritical one line report in Mike Allen's 'Playbook' column at Politico this morning says:"PRESIDENT OBAMA is taping his NCAA picks today, and they’ll be revealed tomorrow on ESPN."With our top Asian ally Japan facing an economic meltdown on top of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant crises--an economic meltdown that is already affecting the U.S. and global economies; with the Middle East in flames; with the U.S. government on the verge of bankruptcy; with the U.S. still involved in two wars, Barack Obama is focused on being the cool guy with the jocks in school by being filmed picking...

According to a story in Sunday’s Washington Post, as President Obama and his advisers measured their response to the mass killing in Libya, they were mindful of the fact that diplomats in Tripoli had told them, in the words of one official, that “certain kinds of messaging from the American government could endanger the security of American citizens.” “Overruling that kind of advice would be a very difficult and dangerous thing to do,” said Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. “That was the debate, and frankly we erred on the side of caution, for certain, and...

Something momentous is happening in the United States right now and Barack Obama doesn’t get it. In Madison, Wisconsin last week, up to 40,000 public employees, organised by their unions, the Democratic party and the grassroots Organizing for America group that elected the president in 2008, gathered at the state capitol. Teachers left their classrooms, forcing schools to close. Their objective? To rail against an attempt to balance the budget and curtail union power by newly-elected Governor Scott Walker, a Republican. The Democratic party’s response? Its state senators have fled Wisconsin to Illinois, dodging state troopers as they went, in...