Jay Carney

The men and women who go the hard yards to cover the White House belong to an organization that calls itself the White House Correspondent's Association. This outfit puts on a little soiree every year, where members can decompress after the tortures of being condescended to, hour after hour, by spokesman Jay Carney.

The president was unaware of further allegations about Secret Service misconduct before reading about in today's newspapers, spokesman Jay Carney said at today's White House briefing.

New York Times: "Pro-American Militia Members Die in Blast in Iraq"

David Beckworth and Ramesh Ponnuru: "Tight Budgets, Loose Money: Why Both Liberals and Conservatives Are Wrong About How to Fix the Economy"

Speaking Wednesday in Washington in front of the Key Bridge, which spans the Potomac River between the District of Columbia and Virginia, President Obama criticized the Republican House for not focusing on job creation. "You have legislation reaffirming that In God We Trust is our motto. That's not putting people back to work. I trust in God, but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people back to work," he said. (Maybe Evan Thomas was on to something...)

A major labor union leader, Teamsters president James Hoffa, is not backing down from comments he made shortly before President Barack Obama's Labor Day speech that called on union workers to “take these sons of bitches out,” referring to members of the Tea Party and Republicans. Hoffa tells Talking Points Memo that he has “no regrets” about his remarks yesterday in Detroit at the Obama event.

Keith Hennessey: "Why I support the Boehner bill"

Politico: "Debbie Wasserman Schultz says GOP seeks ‘dictatorship … spark panic'"

Tim Carney: "Debating a pivotal policy question -- like grown-ups"

The White House briefing room is often known as the place where news goes to die. Reporters try hard to get the press secretary to “make news” – or say something useable for their television/radio/print/web stories of the day. They often fail, in part because the job of the press secretary, in many respects, is to avoid doing exactly what the reporters in the room are trying to get him to do – make news. Every once in a while, though, there is an exchange in the White House briefing room that provides clarity on a major issue of the day.

Is the mainstream media the Obama administration's farm team? With the hiring of the Washington Post's Shailagh Murray to be Joe Biden's new communications director, which happened after the vice president's old press guy (Jay Carney, formerly of Time magazine) was called up to the major leagues to be the president's press secretary, that's certainly the impression one gets. 

Here's White House press secretary Jay Carney explaining why the president hasn't given a satisfactory response to the situation in Libya:

Mixed messaging from the Obama administration today on the budget: Spokesman Jay Carney called the president's budget "extraordinary," while Treasury secretary Tim Geithner said "it's unsustainable."

Here's Geithner:

The Washington Post reports: