When President Obama uses words like "never" and "unprecedented," it's often a signal that what he should have said was "routinely" or, er, "precedented."

The president this week went with "never" as his hyperbolic-and-false word choice to describe Republican insistence that an increase in the debt ceiling come with some attached measures to impose a modicum of fiscal restraint on Washington. Here's the full quote:

"You have never seen in the history of the United States the debt ceiling or the threat of not raising the debt being used to extort a president or a governing party and trying to force issues that have nothing to do with the budget and nothing to do with the debt."

By "never seen in the history of the United States," we can only assume Obama meant "very often have seen since the 1970s." Here's the explanation from the Washington Post's fact checker, Glenn Kessler, after noting the practice apparently was introduced in 1973 by Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy and Walter Mondale:

"Indeed, Linda K. Kowalcky and Lance T. LeLoup wrote in a comprehensive study of the politics of the debt limit, for Public Administration Review,  that 'during this period, the genesis of a pattern developed that would eventually become full blown in the mid-1970s and 1980s: the use of the debt ceiling vote as a vehicle for other legislative matters.'

"Previously, they noted, the debt limit bill had been linked to the mechanics of debt management, but now anything was fair game. Major changes in Social Security were attached to the debt bill; another controversial amendment sought to end the bombing in Cambodia. Kowalcky and LeLoup list 25 nongermane amendments that were attached to debt-limit bills between 1978 and 1987, including allowing voluntary school prayer, banning busing to achieve integration and proposing a nuclear freeze." (link original)

Of course, what else would you expect from a president who excoriates congressional Republicans for threatening to take the same kind of vote he once took as a senator?