August 20th / 22nd
"Michelle and Sasha's Excellent Adventure"
Last week Michelle Obama and her youngest daughter returned from an
overseas vacation, only to be greeted by harsh criticism from politicians, the
public, and the media. The official story is that the First Lady and little
Sasha went on a simple mother/daughter vacation. Then came the other
official story. Michelle traveled to Spain to console a close friend who had
just lost her parent. Either way, very few moms take their daughter to lunch
with the King of Spain, or stay at the ritzy Villa Padierna, a plush hotel
on the Mediterranean.
The five day excursion was lavish in every way, creating a bit of a PR
problem for the White House, which was also having to deal with another
incident. It was the same week that press secretary Robert Gibbs put his foot in
his mouth and went on a tirade about liberals who are critical of the
President. This came in the midst of an off year election in which Democrats
need to shore up their base on the left if they have any chance of turning
back widespread Tea Party momentum. And let's not forget the President's
decision earlier this summer to stay in DC and kid around with the DUKE
basketball squad instead of traveling to the Gulf to assess damage from the BP
oil spill. All this lead the media to question if the Obama family and the
administration were out of touch with reality. Some Democrats are calling
for Gibbs to be fired for his arrogance, but the bigger and more lasting
problem from last week's news cycle may be the fallout from Michelle's
globetrotting.
Defenders of the First Lady point out that she paid for her own hotel
room, but that ignores the true obscenity of the trip. The Air Force jet which
transported Michelle and Sasha cost taxpayers over $146,000. Then there
were the 70 security people who had to be housed at a cost to us of over
$95,000. Add to that approximately $100,000 in per diem reimbursements for the
security detail, and suddenly the mother/daughter vacation turned into a
monumental drain on federal resources, costing taxpayers nearly $400,000.
This comes at a time when official national unemployment figures hover
around 10%, and that rises to nearly 15% if you take into account people who
have stopped looking for jobs that don't exist, and those whose benefits
have run out. But no matter how you figure it, people in this country are
suffering, and many of those who have lost their jobs have also lost their
homes. Meanwhile, most of the rest of us struggle every month to pay the
rent, put food on the table, and hope we can afford to pay for health
insurance. So the last thing we want to read about is that the First Lady and the
Second daughter have just cost us a fortune for a showy week of fun.
If in fact Michelle needed to be with her grieving friend, that's fine,
but she should have pared down the entourage, used her own money to pay for
the expenses, and stayed clear of any ritzy hotels, eateries, or shops. That
way, she wouldn't have wasted tax dollars or appeared extravagant while
the rest of us are suffering through a recession.
Of course, all of the criticism and speculation would be moot if the First
Lady were on official government business, so guess what the White House
revealed upon her return to our shore? We are now being told that while
she was in Spain, Michelle made phone calls to four Senators back home to
check on the progress of Child Nutrition legislation which, if passed, would
target her pet cause, obesity. Unfortunately, making a few long distance
phone calls does not a state visit make.
Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus believes Michelle's actions were not
meant as a slap in the face to us peons. Said Marcus, "it was not a 'let
them eat cake' moment". But she also wrote that the trip was not
"politically smart".
It is ironic that for a woman who is crusading to end obesity, Michelle
Obama certainly knows how to live off the fat of the land.
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