Projection

clipped from www.cashill.com Obama was particularly worried because he had spent $75,000 of the advance and had produced nothing. In 1993, the publisher canceled the contract but let Obama keep the money after he pled poverty due to "massive student loan debt." At the time, the Obamas, still childless, were making $250,000 a year between them. Michelle had a personal trainer and a closet full of Jimmy Choo shoes, but their creditors would have to wait. Personal debt is nothing new. “He that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing,” said Benjamin Franklin some 250 years ago. As I show in my new book, Popes and Bankers, we have been in debt as a nation and a people from the very beginning, Thomas Jefferson being a classic prodigal. The difference between Obama and Jefferson, though, is that the latter did not project his personal failings onto the nation as a whole.