Let's be honest, Democrats.
If First Lady Michelle Obama was a Republican, we'd rightfully be pitching a public tantrum about the galling arrogance of Michelle Obama using Air Force 2, which cost $11,351 hourly to operate, to ferry her, 9-year-old Sasha Obama, a handful of White House staff, and security personnel for a "private" vacation this past weekend in a glitzy five-star Spanish coastal resort.
Per Lynn Sweet at Politics Daily, expenses born by U.S. taxpayer for Mrs. Obama's grand holiday include "about $95,000 in hotel costs for an estimated 70 security personnel -- Secret Service and military -- who get a $273-a-day government per diem, plus costs for the dozen or so cars in her motorcade. I'm told that three shifts of agents are needed for a trip of this magnitude."
Understandably, if Mrs. Obama was a Republican, we would've ranted and raved about all her other pricey trips on our taxpayer dime, as well. Three of numerous examples rush to mind:
- Paris in June 2009, when Michelle and her young daughters toured the Eiffel tour, shopped the toniest streets in downtown Paris, noshed epicurean French cuisine, and admired modern art. Michelle and entourage then flew on to London to prolong their European vacation fun while the President returned to D.C.
- Also in June 2009, Michelle's romantic date to Manhattan... "a campaign pledge that Barack Obama didn't dare break - a promise to take his wife out for dinner and a show once the election was over," per the UK Mail.com.
To impress his globe-trotting wife, Mr. Obama escorted her to dinner, a Broadway show, and after-show martinis, all reasonable expenses paid by the President, of course.
But taxpayers picked up the tab for much more, including most costs of "... three planes, one to carry the couple and two to ferry aides and reporters all the way from Washington... The bill was pushed even higher with the use of two helicopters, one to take the Obamas to catch their plane in Washington and another to zip the party into Manhattan from JFK airport. Police also shut down New York streets for the motorcade to pass through so they could get to their date on time."
- Here in my hometown of Los Angeles in June 2010, when, after a uber-brief visit with Camp Pendleton Marines, Mrs. Obama, daughters and entourage took "the town by storm, popping up at Hollywood restaurants" and attending game six of the NBA play-offs between the LA Lakers and Boston Celtics.
Reported the Huffington Post the day after Mrs. Obama arrived in the City of Angels, "The next day the First Lady was spotted with her huge security entourage (CHP motorcycle cops, a CHP patrol car, and four SUVs) at Chef Mario Batali and Chef Nancy Silverton's Osteria Mozza... "
At minimum, if Michelle Obama was a Republican, we would've called out her dreadfully insensitive fashion faux pas which range from:
- sporting $540 designer sneakers to volunteer at a D.C. food bank, to...
- wearing an impossible-to-miss white designer dress with over-sized black ink splotches, for her visit to tour a Gulf Coast beach heavily damaged by history's largest oil spill. (Quipped one blog commenter, "Perfect wardrobe choice. If some oil splashes up on the dress, it will blend right in."), to...
- allegedly toting an Italian-made "shiny black alligator manila bag - with a retail sticker price of $5,950" while "strolling the wooded landscape outside of Moscow." (Per the New York Daily News, "Told that Obama's office denied the bag was the high-end VBH clutch, Kelly Vitko, a rep for the company replied, "It's definitely ours.")
As a devoted cook and amateur foodie, I distinctly remember when, in September 2009, Mrs. Obama, who admits to not cooking, made a remarkably costly show of pretending to shop for healthy ingredients for her family meal table. Reported columnist Dana Milbank of the Washington Post:
"The Secret Service and the D.C. police brought in three dozen vehicles and shut down H Street, Vermont Avenue, two lanes of I Street and an entrance to the McPherson Square Metro station. They swept the area, in front of the Department of Veterans Affairs, with bomb-sniffing dogs and installed magnetometers in the middle of the street, put up barricades to keep pedestrians out, and took positions with binoculars atop trucks. Though the produce stand was only a block or so from the White House, the first lady hopped into her armored limousine and pulled into the market amid the wail of sirens."Then, and only then, could Obama purchase her leafy greens. "Now it's time to buy some food," she told several hundred people who came to watch. "Let's shop!"... the result was quite the opposite of a quaint farmers market. Considering all the logistics, each tomato she purchased had a carbon footprint of several tons."
Yes, if Michelle Obama was a Republican, Democrats would undoubtedly point out the self-absorbed insensitivity and unfettered hypocrisy of our First Lady consistently living so luxuriously and wasting millions in public largesse while in 2010, middle-class and working-class Americans suffer miserably.
But Michelle Obama is a Democrat, not Republican, and accordingly, most (not all!) liberals turn their heads and conveniently ignore the irresponsible excesses of our First Lady, despite this time of desperate need for Americans.
I wonder... does Democratic passive acceptance of these greedy wrongs make liberals complicit in Mrs. Obama's waste of millions in public funds? If Democrats don't challenge her frittering away of our hard-earned funds, how can they lay claim to moral credibility when calling out conservatives for the same bad behavior?
One thing I know: I will never again find Michelle Obama believable when she ladles food at a soup kitchen, or volunteers a couple hours at a food bank. She is one woman who looks terrific for the press while talking the walk, but who feels too privileged, too special, to walk the walk of meaningful sacrifice in her own life for others.
(Photo taken of First Lady Michelle Obama on May 19, 2010: Gary Fabiano/Getty Images)
Comments
I had not heard of most of these incidents. Unbelievable! And I can’t believe there wasn’t more about the ink blot outfit in the mainstream media.
Although I was excited when Obama won over McCain, I’ve always thought that expectations were too high and we were all going to be disappointed. And I’ve been disappointed with both of them.
Thanks for this interesting and insightful blog!
Doris, I linked to photos of each of three fashion faux pas mentioned, so be sure to a look at that ink-splotch dress. Seriously… that was weirdly thoughtless almost beyond belief.
Yes, I, too, am sadly disappointed with both the President and First Lady.
Not surprised at all!
The Obama family always represents U.S. HIGHEST Class, elitists, as well as intellectualisits (even if they were not the First Family).
A huge bunch of Democrats’ behaviors are in fact not ordinary American lifestyle. They do NOT stand with WE Amercan people.
Besides, there are lots of cases that liberal media act hypocritically.
For instance, OK to mock Sarah Palin’s appearence all day long while WRONG to tease Barbara Boxer’s hair.
Not surprised at all!
The Obama family always represents U.S. HIGHEST Class, elitists, as well as intellectualisits (even if they were not the First Family).
A huge bunch of Democrats’ behaviors are in fact not ordinary American lifestyle. They do NOT stand with WE Amercan people.
Besides, there are lots of cases that liberal media act hypocritically.
For instance, OK to mock Sarah Palin’s appearence all day long while WRONG to tease Barbara Boxer’s hair.
Seriously this is all of the sudden news, First Ladies have always taken vacations with and without POTUS and their kids going back to the beginning of the Republic… I’m also pretty sure that none of you Harpies ever bitched about Laura Bush taking a vacation with her girls the whole time they were in the White House… Or the Hundred upon Hundreds of trips that they had to take to Crawford in order for Bushie to play Cowboy, where was your anger then? To complain about it now after only a handful of trips in two years smells to me as something you despise about the office holder rather than the incidence itself…
Also you conveniently left off your little Hatchet job that the Obama’s cover the cost of their personal expenses, unfortunately the cost of their security comes out of taxpayer expense and is well worth it to insure their security.
And while on the subject, do you really expect the First Lady, her kids and her staff to to leave Washington without Secret Service Protection?
Anyone else catch Terry Gross last week?
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=128872279
This is the emergence of a new “Bipartisan Party.”
“GROSS: So let’s start with what’s going on politically here. The reading had a reference to the Bipartisan Party. What’s the Bipartisan Party?
“Mr. SHTEYNGART: There’s only one party left at this point in America, and it’s the Bipartisan Party. And it’s really nice because we don’t have to choose between Republicans and Democrats, which were different, but, you know, they had some commonalities. So it’s much nicer and more streamlined to have one party, the Bipartisan Party.
“The Bipartisan Party runs something called the American Restoration Authority, which is basically a bunch of very armed national guardspeople running around, trying to save the infrastructure, which is collapsing as we speak. The Williamsburg Bridge goes down during one point in the book. And everything is basically slowly, slowly, slowly falling apart.
“GROSS: There are great political divisions in that country. There’s even an insurrection that happens in the book. What are the divisions about?
“Mr. SHTEYNGART: Well, the divisions are about whatever happens when a country begins to slowly begin its descent, especially when it’s a major country, you know.
“I grew up in the Soviet Union, and then we came to a Hebrew School in Queens. So I know about dystopia. I know about things that don’t work. I know when things begin to fall apart, especially when a country is as big as America or Russia, a country that has a kind of messianic belief in itself that we are not just important but we are the most important country in the world.
“And for countries like that, a decline is never pretty because the landing is never as soft.
=======================
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
=>Pogo
Yeah, seems like Laura Bush spent most of her vacations-away-from-W hiking in National Parks — American National Parks. Rarely made news.
Robert
An interesting, on-target piece by journalist Kristen Powers:
A foolish trip
Michelle Obama’s PR disaster
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/foolish_trip_U9ovxbpefIXEOlmbzshMRL
Great Article! Finally someone breaks down these costs. I think many of the elite would hope that someone doesn’t spend the time to really articulate the true costs associated with all of these leisure activities.
What you all seem to be missing here is that it’s not so much about the huge amounts of money us tax payers have to lay out for their extravagent tastes in everything they do, it’s the pure, unadultrated hypocrascy!
While Obama is lecturing us on having to cut back, he is, of course , exempting himself and his family from cutting back. That’s the bigger story!
It’s a dirty, rotten system. Americans have created a funhouse-mirror replica of European royalty, and we have come to accept excess on the part of our public servants. We need a revolution in the way we think about politics. I don’t begrudge them a security detail with all the sickness in our society, but they are insulated from working people in almost every aspect of their existence.
Oh, give me a break! I’m a democrat, and I wouldn’t be throwing a hissy fit over this if she was Republican or Democrat. Christ, will everyone please get SOME perspective? The infrastructure it takes to support our government and protect the president, the first family, any foreign dignitaries, the speaker of the house, the vice president is unquestionably huge. The marginal cost of the first lady going on a trip has got to be immaterial.
Before talking about “how much” it’s costing the taxpayers, please think about he whole context. Until someone can say that EXTRA expense is, oh lets say 1% more than what we spend daily on the big picture, it’s just a bunch of people whining who have no big picture perspective.
No wonder the ice caps are melting if we can’t put anything in perspective.
Hey everybody, let’s get caught up in the little things, shall we?
Should Michelle Obama, who lives in what Harry Truman called the Crown Jewel of the Federal Penitentiary System, be forced to pretend that she isn’t a millionaire and not be able to go on vacations?
We Democratic “elitists” aren’t the ones that pretend to be folksy when really we’re millionaires, a la George W. Bush.
And if you really are concerned about the waste of “taxpayer money,” go look at the Federal budget. We deal in trillions at this level, not hundreds of thousands.
Or, for every dollar you think is being frittered away, divide that by 250,000,000 and you’ll have a rough approximation of how much of “your money” is being wasted.
Yikes!! that dress is soooo sluty for a presidents wife.
I know I cannot be the only one that feels this way. I am really having a hard time, (call me old fashioned) with these women on TV, FOX, MSNBC, CNN etc even Oprah, showing cleavage, do they really think they are being taken serious as they no one is looking at their faces, hmmmm
As for the vacation, I don’t really care, but it seem folk from all sectors of life do. Not with hubby, hmmmm, again?
Could be the marriage is on shakey ground? but again who really cares as long as Obama runs the country or at least is tryng to.
Well maybe if Republicans would stop sweating nonsense like birth certificates and other harmless accusations and focus on more important subjects like death counts for example, this wouldn’t be the reality. But the reality is that both the republican party and the democrat party are corporate tools used to box people’s beliefs and ideas into two boxes.
Green Party.
So I take it that there are no “five-star resorts” in the US or it’s territories? Ok, how about North America or any of the America’s? The price tag is bad enough, why is more of our money being spent overseas? I thought we’re already contributing enough overseas invading and rebuilding! This is going to have quite a bit of backlash!
Rev Wright, Rick Warren, on the wrong side of civil rights for gays, using a nonFloridian (Robert Wexler) to move up the Florida primary and disenfranchise every human who deigns to vote for a woman, electioneering in Texas and Michigan, “woman can’t run her own house, can’t run the white house” with her Harvard education steppin and fetchin no less for misogyny and homophobia. Green Party for sure. Rosa Clemente and Cynthia Mckinney we’re a thousand times more American than that aristocratic idiot on the cover of Vogue with the likes of Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. Disgusting.
I think our First Families deserve a fancy-pants vacation now and again while they are in the White House. This gig lasts a short time (shorter for some than others), and they want to enjoy it. Let’s face it, wouldn’t you??
That said, the shoes are unbelievable. The dress, well – whatever, I’m not a fan – but really, designer SNEAKERS that cost almost $600, while serving up food at a homeless shelter??? Yeah, unfortunately here it screams Marie Antoinette.
For those who are complaining about the trip overseas instead of some American destination, there are 2 issues you are forgetting:
(1) The Obamas paid for the trip on their own dime, and they do have the right just like us to choose where they want to go for vacation.
(2) Mrs Obama chose Spain because a recently widowed friend promised to take her daughter to Spain for her birthday. Mrs Obama agreed to accompany them. It was a private trip.
Hey, just stop making every little move a politically meaningful thing! This article gives you some perspective on the whole gnashing of teeth our country goes through every time the President and his family steps out:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/hey-america-take-the-day-off/
I recently wrote a column for David Horowitz’s NewsReal Blog (where I’m a contributor) that made many of the EXACT same points that you made in your column–and I’m a conservative. Either this is a “great minds think alike” moment, or Michelle Obama has been engaging in some unforgivably tacky behavior–or both.
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/08/10/michelle-obama-spoiled-brat-extraordinaire/
Have a good night.
Sincerely, Susannah Fleetwood
Susannah, just goes to show that common sense is non-partisan! Bad behavior and is bad behavior, no matter what political party.