ABC News reports that the Secret Service officials accused of misconduct in Colombia revealed their identities by boasting at a brothel “we work for Obama” and “we’re here to protect him.”

David Frum suggests President Obama could learn a few things from Robert Caro’s books on Lyndon Johnson.

“It’s hard not to detect in these pages an unspoken critique of Barack Obama. Yes, certainly, Obama shares Lyndon Johnson’s gift for driving opponents crazy, if it is a gift. But the use of power Caro so vividly describes is not something that comes naturally to our current president. The constant searching for opportunities; the shameless love-bombing of opponents; the endless wooing of supporters; the deft deployment of inducements and threats — these are the low arts that led to Johnson’s high success. You can see why a high-minded leader like Barack Obama would recoil from the Johnson style and embrace Kennedyesque rhetorical grandeur instead. Such presidents contribute great phrases to quotation books, but they tend not to add lasting laws to the statute books — or enduring change to the history books.”

A New York Times review of campaign donations and White House access logs shows that those who donated the most to Barack Obama and the Democratic Party since he started running for president were far more likely to visit the White House than others.

“Among donors who gave $30,000 or less, about 20 percent visited the White House, according to a New York Times analysis that matched names in the visitor logs with donor records. But among those who donated $100,000 or more, the figure rises to about 75 percent. Approximately two-thirds of the president’s top fund-raisers in the 2008 campaign visited the White House at least once, some of them numerous times.”

The rapidly unfolding prostitution scandal involving as many as a dozen Secret Service agents has upstaged President Obama’s trip to Columbia, where he is discussing trade and the economy with 32 other heads of state, the Washington Post reports.

“Though the agency has said Obama’s security was not compromised, the allegations of misconduct have brought intense scrutiny to an agency that had not had any major lapse since 2009, when two party crashers entered the White House uninvited. But the incident continued to grow Saturday when the Defense Department announced that five military personnel, who also are staying at the Hotel Caribe, violated curfew Wednesday night and have been confined to their rooms.”

New York Times: “Much remained murky, including the precise number of agents under scrutiny and the timeline, and officials emphasized that the investigation was still in its early stages.”

Vice President Joe Biden offered a frank assessment of his career in remarks at a Democratic fundraiser in Chicago last night, according to the Washington Examiner.

Said Biden: “I never had an interest in being a mayor ’cause that’s a real job. You have to produce. That’s why I was able to be a senator for 36 years.”

“It could be better. It could always be better. I haven’t had that much communication.”

— Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), quoted by The Hill, responding to a question about President Obama’s outreach to lawmakers.

“I think I can say… no president, and I would argue in the 20th century and including now the 21st century, has had as many serious problems which are cases of first-instance laid on his table. Franklin Roosevelt faced more dire consequences, but in a bizarre way it was more straightforward.”

— Vice President Joe Biden, quoted by ABC News.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) came to President Obama’s defense saying that Mitt Romney’s recent criticism of the president was inappropriate while Obama was abroad, National Journal reports.

Said Boehner: “Clearly while the president is overseas, he’s at a conference, and while the president is overseas I think it’s appropriate that people not be critical of him or our country.”

Politico says Newt Gingrich was asked today if he was concerned about polls that find people continue to think President Obama is a Muslim.

Said Gingrich: “Why does the president behave the way that people would think that? You have to ask why would they believe that? It’s not because they’re stupid. It’s because they watch the kind of things I just described to you.”

Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio tells the Arizona Republic that a media conspiracy “bigger than Watergate” is purposefully downplaying his investigation of President Obama’s birth certificate.

Said Arpaio: “I’m not going to drop this. You don’t think I did a press conference and let it die? I’ll make a decision real quick where to send the evidence we have. There are not many options. You do know this is complex. Many conflicts of interest from the White house to the Attorney General. I can go on and on.”

For the third time this month, someone fainted during one of President Obama’s speeches, the New York Times reports.

“Fainting spells have come over people during Mr. Obama’s speeches since at least 2008, when he was campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination” but he “appears to have gotten used to it.”

In New Hampshire last week, Obama said, “Folks do this all the time at my meetings.”

The latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll finds President Obama’s approval rating rose to 51%, up from only 44% in each of the previous polls taken in October and December.

“That’s Obama’s highest approval rating in the Heartland Monitor since the survey taken immediately after the killing of Osama bin Laden in May. Other than that, the new survey marks the first time that Obama’s approval rating in the poll has crossed the critical 50 percent threshold since September 2009.”

This survey completely contradicts a CBS/NYT poll earlier this week that found Obama’s approval sinking to a new low.

White House Chief Information Officer Brook Colangelo revealed in a talk with Computerworld that, upon taking office, “Over 82% of the White House’s technology had reached end of life. Desktops, for instance, still had floppy disk drives, including the one Colangelo delivered to Rahm Emanuel.”

“On taking his new position on inauguration day, he and his staff put in 80 hour weeks, ‘if not more.’ And in his first 40 days on the job, the White House email system was down 23% of the time.”

The White House organized a conference call with “two senior administration officials” to preview an announcement by President Obama about a a China trade issue but told reporters that no one could be quoted by name.

However, the AP ignored the instructions — reporting the officials were U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and the deputy national security adviser Michael Froman — stating Obama promised his administration would be “the most transparent in American history.”

For the first time since early July, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds more Americans approve of the job President Obama is doing than disapprove, 50% to 48%.

Some other polls have shown a recent dip in Obama’s approval rating, and linked that to rising gasoline prices.

A new Bloomberg poll shows Obama’s approval at 48%.

“Had he failed in that audacious mission, he would’ve been a one-term president.”

— Vice President Joe Biden, quoted by The Hill, on President Obama ordering the mission to kill Osama bin Laden.

First Read looks at the dramatic drop in President Obama’s approval rating found in last night’s CBS/NYT poll but suggests it may be an outlier since there’s no major event which occurred in the past month to account for this drop.

“It’s probably worth waiting for a few more national polls before reaching the conclusion that something has happened to Obama’s standing in the past month.”

The latest CBS News/New York Times poll shows President Obama’s approval rating has hit the lowest level ever and “may be partially attributable to rising gas prices.”

Key finding: Just 41% of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing as president, while 47% disapprove of his performance.

This follows a new Washington Post/ABC News poll that found President Obama’s approval rating dropping to 46%.