Power Point: Progress comes in fits and starts

• Power Point: Do whatever it takes

  "We will get in a rocket and fly around the moon if that is what it takes to get everybody together and get an agreement."

  -- White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on President Obama's proposed health-care reforms. While Gibbs opted for sarcasm, the President took the philosophical route, recalling landmark social reforms. "These struggles always boil down to a contest between hope and fear," he said. "That was true in MORE

  Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Aug 20, 2009 7:07 PM ET
  Posted in: health care, Obama, politics, Postcards, Power Point, President Obama, robert gibbs, Washington

• Power Point: Help us do our taxes

  "We need to simplify a monstrous tax code that is far too complicated for most Americans to understand, but just complicated enough for the insiders who know how to game the system."

  -- President Barack Obama in a speech at the White House on Wednesday. The first couple paid about $855,000 in federal taxes and would have gotten $26,000 back, but applied the amount to their 2009 income taxes instead. Happy MORE

  Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Apr 15, 2009 7:10 PM ET
  Posted in: Barack Obama, Obama, Postcards, Power Point, President Obama, taxes

• Power Point: Give us a few weeks

  "Why didn't the waters part, the sun shine and all the ills of the world disappear because President Obama came to Europe? That wasn't our expectation. That'll take at least a few weeks."

  --White House senior adviser David Axelrod, in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal. As Axelrod quips, repairing U.S. relations with Europe won't happen overnight, but Obama got off on the right foot--helped no doubt by his rock-star status on the MORE

  Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Apr 8, 2009 5:51 PM ET
  Posted in: Barack Obama, david axelrod, diplomacy, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, Obama, Obama administration, politics, Postcards, Power Point, President Obama, Washington

• Power Point: It's bigger than you

  "I think if you're only thinking about yourself, your life becomes diminished."

  --President Obama at a French town hall, on the importance of public service. For more on people embracing Obama's "new era of responsibility" read yesterday's post where I talk about the Serve America Act passed by Congress this week. --Jessica Shambora

  Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Apr 3, 2009 6:59 PM ET
  Posted in: Barack Obama, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, Postcards, Power Point, President Obama

• How the best bosses find focus

  "The hardest thing about the job is staying focused," President Obama told Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes Sunday night.

  Are you feeling like the President these days? Unfocused? Maybe fatally so? We're living in an age of "global A.D.D.," as David Brooks, the New York Times op-ed writer said in his column last Friday. Brooks criticizes President Obama for attempting to tackle the "four most complicated problems facing the nation--health care, MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Mar 24, 2009 1:55 PM ET
  Posted in: 60 Minutes, A.G. Lafley, advice, Anne Mulcahy, Bain, CEOs, David Brooks, Disney, eBay, focus, FORTUNE MPWomen, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, management, Meg Whitman, Obama, P&G, Paypal, Postcards, President Obama, Procter & Gamble, Skype, Xerox, XRX

• Power Point: Keep your day job

  "Sorry buddy, you've still got the job."

  -- President Obama quipped that this would be his response to Tim Geithner were the Treasury Secretary to try and quit the job. On CBS's 60 Minutes last night, Obama called Geithner "as sharp and as skilled a public servant as we have." The embattled Treasury boss can finally claim a win today. His public-private partnership plan to clear toxic assets from bank MORE

  Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Mar 23, 2009 6:20 PM ET
  Posted in: banks, Barack Obama, economy, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, politics, Postcards, Power Point, President Obama, Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary, Washington

• Most Powerful Women answer Obama's call

  On Friday, I left you with a promise: that I'd find something new and proactive to do to answer President Obama's call to "responsibility"--which seems to be the buzzword of his Administration.

  I found my "to do" this weekend--but before I tell you what I decided on, let me share briefly what I spent yesterday working on. Carrie Welch, my onetime Fortune colleague and former Most Powerful Women Summit co-chair, and MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Mar 2, 2009 2:10 PM ET
  Posted in: Accenture, American Express, Andrea Jung, Ann Moore, Avon, AVP, AXP, Beth brooke, CARE USA, Condoleezza Rice, DD, Diane Gulyas, Dina Powell, Dow, DuPont, Ernst & Young, Exxon Mobil, Fidelity, FORTUNE Most Powerful Women Summit, FORTUNE MPWomen, Goldman Sachs, Goldman Sachs/Fortune Global Women Leaders Award, GS, Helene Gayle, Kathy Murphy, KPMG, linda dillman, Mentoring, Meredith Whitney, Most Powerful Women, MPWomen Go Global, Nielson Media Research, philanthropy, Postcards, President Obama, Skadden Arps, susan whiting, Time Inc., Wal-Mart, WMT, XOM

• Power Point: Put a lid on anger

  "It's not about helping banks, it's about helping people. We cannot afford to govern out of anger, or yield to the politics of the moment."

  -- President Obama, to Congress on Tuesday night. It was a speech obviously written for the suffering American populace. On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke followed up by telling the House Financial Services Committee that at-risk homeowners need rescuing. "Some borrowers presumably knew what they MORE

  Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Feb 25, 2009 6:58 PM ET
  Posted in: Ben Bernanke, homeowners, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, politics, Postcards, Power Point, President Obama, Washington

• Power Point: Gotta spend

  "You get the argument, 'Well, this is not a stimulus bill; this is a spending bill.' What do you think a stimulus is? That's the whole point."

  --President Obama, in a feisty address Thursday night at a House Democratic Caucus retreat in Williamsburg, Va. Frustrated by the quibbles of Senate Republicans, Obama called the delay to pass the $800 billion stimulus bill "inexcusable."

  Today's bleak jobs report--the worst since December 1974--added to MORE

  Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Feb 6, 2009 6:27 PM ET
  Posted in: Christina Romer, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, politics, Postcards, Power Point, President Obama, senate, Washington