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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Sex abuse in the Catholic Church and at Penn State, accounting practices at Enron, the break-in at the Watergate, in each of those cases and many, many more, senior officials lied to protect an individual or an institution. And while we've all learned that the cover-up is worse than the crime, very human impulses can overcome ethics, one lie can lead to another, and a bad situation becomes much, much worse.

Rebecca Smith owns a Tampa, Fla., construction-management firm that does a lot of work overseeing the building of schools and jails, and other projects for state and local governments.

But even though much of her firm's $80 million in annual revenue comes from contracts with government agencies, she says she was "disgusted" by President Obama's thesis that government had a significant role in her business achievements.

Obama's actual words, from a July 13 speech in Virginia, were:

Update at 4:33 p.m. ET. Right At Expectations:

Facebook reported slightly stronger than expected profits. For the second quarter, it reported a net loss of $157 million or 11 cents a share. But when it adjusted its earnings to remove stock compensation charges related to its IPO, Reuters reports, Facebook actually made 12 cents a share.

As they're told, we'll point to some of the stories about the 12 people who died and the 58 who were wounded last Friday when a gunman opened fire at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. As you see others, please share the links in the comment threads.