Vacationgate
The most ignorant argument I have heard this summer took place last week when First Lady Michelle Obama was criticized for taking a vacation to Spain with her daughter, Sasha. Fox News and other conservative news outlets covered it like Watergate.
“For a couple that has sharply criticized former President George W. Bush so widely, they could stand to follow his example for once and select a more low-key locale, as Bush regularly did in his Texas vacations,” Andrea Tantaros wrote in the NY Daily News. “Instead, Michelle Obama seems more like a modern-day Marie Antoinette – the French queen who spent extravagantly on clothes and jewels without a thought for her subjects’ plight – than an average mother of two. While she’s spent her time in the White House telling parents they should relieve their chubby kids’ dependency on sugar and stressing the importance of an organic veggie garden, hopping a jet to Europe to meet with Spanish royalty isn’t the visual the White House probably wants to project.”
While Tantaros has no problem using the Bushes as examples as what is decent and pure in this country, she fails to mention the 879 days they spent at Camp David on ‘vacation.” That comes to 30 percent of his time in office.
And that’s the actual President. Not his wife. No one cared what Laura Bush was doing or where she went during the eight years they were in the White House. Now all of a sudden people want to find fault with the First Lady and her family enjoying the perks that come with her husband’s position.
Yes, I know we are in the middle of a terrible jobs market and economic turmoil. But we as a country are always in the middle of something bad. But we don’t stop living our lives because of it.
If these same people had made these arguments when Bush or Reagan were in office, I wouldn’t have a problem. But they didn’t. It makes you wonder why it’s different now?
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August 10th, 2010 at 9:36 am
What’s different is the clear elitist attitude and contempt that the Obamas demonstrate daily toward the American people and what has made this the greatest and most free country on the face of the Earth.
If you are going to cite Bush’s “days on vacation” at least have the fortitude to do your research and cite those that were truly R&R and not working vacations where foreign dignitaries visit and undoubtedly discuss many issues beyond Mint Juleps. Camp David is rarely used solely for R&R and the ranch in Texas is well documented as being a satellite Whitehouse for all practical purposes. No function of the Presidency could not be just as well handled in Crawford as it could have in the Oval Office.
In addition, Bush was not surrounded by a horde of Czars that Obama has made his luxury to appoint with impunity. Bush actually DID the job that Obama farms out to less qualified but obviously well connected cronies, continually stacking the administration with appointees who do not share the same values as the majority, YES, THE MAJORITY of the American people.
This administration is so grossly out of touch with the reality of this country’s greatness and worth it seems almost hopeless. Fortunately, come November, maybe the voice will be loud and clear enough that even the deaf ear of Barack will not be able to ignore it.
Even Liberal bloggers and journalists are starting to call Obama out on his gross mishandling of the problems at hand, instead turning toward politically motivated issues in hopes of salvaging a majority in Congress at the peril of the American voting public while the economy continues to suffer and unemployment steadily rises. (As a side not, creating government jobs is NOT a viable path toward economic recovery)
What’s different? The better question is “what’s the same”?
I did not vote for Obama for the simple reason that I did not feel a junior Senator with no real experience at anything except living off other people’s money was qualified to run this country. We need far more than a community organizer who seems hell bent on dividing, not unifying, this country. And the more I hear him speak the more convinced I become that his will go down in history as one of the most dismal failures in Presidential history.
Some feel that the “difference” is that he is black…..well almost. And maybe that does play into the equation for many. I myself am white and have two beautiful mixed-race daughters whom I love and respect as much as any other well-deserving human. And I teach them to respect themselves and earn their own sense of worth and respect from others. The government is not our nanny and these girls will grow up knowing this.
The Obama clan clearly feels that “there time has come”. Their sense of entitlement speaks loud and clear every time they pull another ill-advised and poorly, poorly timed stunt like this one. They are not untouchable though they certainly try to convey this sense on a daily basis. The people will speak and let the chips fall where they may.
I pray for our country, more than I ever thought I would. And I pray that the hordes of Obamanots will eventually wake from their slumber and realize that the election of Barack Obama to the highest office in this country and one of, if not THE most powerful positions in the World, was a mistake who’s ramifications have only begun to be exposed.
August 11th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
NEWSFLASH**** ALL former US Presidents, their wives, and families are receiving security from the Secret Service. Why are you not complaining about this??? Its not like the rate suddenly jumps because Obama’s wife decides to take a vacation. VACATION – not a photo op.
Here is a quote from the AP regarding the nature of the expenses:
“All parties on this vacation paid for their own hotel rooms and for their own personal expenses. Tax payer money wasn’t used for any of the fun that the two families are having over in Spain, no matter how many people want to claim that it has taken place. To address the statement that taxpayer money is being wasted on Secret Service details to cover Michelle Obama and her party is also ridiculous. Yes, the Secret Service is being paid by taxpayer money, the same way these details would be paid if Michelle Obama was visiting Florida, or Washington State, or Baltimore. It’s not like the rate of pay goes up suddenly just because they are guarding the first lady in Spain rather than in her own backyard.”
Is the timing bad??? Maybe, maybe not, but the her VACATION has ZERO BARRING on your life or mine. Where was the outrage when the Bush regime took our economy on a little vacation??? No where to be found from the same people screaming foul now.
Bush was at his “Secondary” whitehouse reading the PDB titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike the U.S.” just a month before 4 planes were simultaneously hijacked. So please spare us the “Bush actually DID the job that Obama farms out to less qualified” line. My adolescent son could’ve read that brief and understood the magnitude of the pending terrorist threat, even with his feet propped up drinking Obama-flavored Kool-Aid in the South of France. But the well qualified appointees and that hard at work Dubya managed to blow it off, and later deny that they had any warning of the sort.
Her Spain trip has nothing to do with her Husband, your president’s policies. The attempt to politicize this issue is so lame that I dread even commenting. But alals, I fell victim to the bogus discontent and name-calling. You should teach your daughters the same thing Michelle taught hers during the trip – see the world and live your life to the fullest. To try and tie this issue to the greater economic issues is asanine at its core.
The issue is Obama’s wife and her vacation, not your disdain for his qualifications and lack of blackness. And sense when have elite appointees shared the values of the majority of Americans. What kind of world have I been living in, that prior to Obama the political appointments of Presidents were just like you and I. It has never been.
Fake outrage is intolerable. Folks on the right nitpick the silliest things to criticize, especially when they had no issue with other presidents or their spouses did the same thing. “I’ll criticize this First Lady’s trips the day after George W. Bush reimburses the American people for the 487 days he spent at Camp David and the 490 days he was at his Crawford ranch.”
Black Out. Not Half, but 100% Black.
August 20th, 2010 at 7:22 am
Uhm, OK. Thanks for the newsflash.
And my disdain for Obama is solely based on his policies and contempt for America. His blackness means nothing to me but he sure as heck uses it to his advantage at every opportunity. It’s much of what got him elected and that can’t be denied.
And by the way I’m not someone on the right. Libertarian would be about as close as my views can be described. Both political parties are so corrupt and far removed from what the checks and balances were designed to prevent it’s sickening.
Hope and change were a great slogan. Sucked many a moron into voting for an unqualified and extreme left-leaning, smooth talking attorney into the most powerful position in the country. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to take a bad situation and make it far worse.
So I guess I’ll just sit back and continue to watch this clown sink his own party and majority in Congress. It gets more entertaining every day.
I was pretty disgusted with the Bush administration’s handling, or mishandling of many, many issues. But WOW. Bush ain’t got nothing on Obama when it comes to being a bumbling idiot.
I’ll teach my daughters many things over the coming years. One important lesson will be never to use their color for gain or to allow them to be denied rights because of the same. That is about as low as a human can get.
White out. 100% transparent.
September 3rd, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Marie Antoinette…
As the Truth sees it… ” Blog Archive ” Vacationgate is an awesome blog post about Marie Antoinette Wasted Money I recently ran across….
October 12th, 2010 at 7:43 pm
Great Post!…
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