I was thinking about our President this evening as I heard about his golf outing with Tiger Woods in Florida. As the President spent his Sunday on the golf course with the world's #2 ranked golfer his wife and kids are on their annual ski vacation to Aspen, CO. This is all happening while we are just one quarter of negative growth away from another recession and (while I certainly don't begrudge our First Family getting away once in awhile) I wondered when the last time the family got to go on vacation.
Oh yeah, it was the 17 day Hawaiian vacation way back in 2012. How long ago was that? Let's see, I think it was 45 whole days ago. Talk about a workaholic!! I get a real kick out of the President telling us that the greedy rich need to do more to pay their "fair share" while he and his family spend upwards of $20 million on vacationing in just over four years. Wow, you might think, how did he pay for all that? Well the truth is that all you who struggle to pay the bills and save in the hopes of one short vacation each year have paid for the Obamas' trips to Hawaii (several), Spain, Aspen, Nantucket and numerous golf courses around Washington and the rest of the country.
The way the Royals- I'm sorry the Obamas live the high life reminds me of Marie Antoinette and her "let them eat cake" quote. While preaching to us about how we should get off demon oil, the first family burns fossil fuels at an astonishing rate flying to exotic locations all over the world for fun- not in any official function of the Chief Executive. You would think the media would be wondering if the image the First Family was sending was appropriate. Well, you would be wrong.
The majority of the "journalists" that make up our Fourth Estate have their heads stuck so far up a certain part of the President's anatomy that cheerleading is a weak description of what they have produced since 2009. Actually, the medias' covering, rooting and sanitizing the President and his utterances goes back to his campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2008. My favorite example is Obama's "57 States" comment.
Many are probably still unaware that in May of 2008 Obama told a crowd in Oregon that he had been to 57 states and only had one to go. This was because of the total media blackout of any and all information that may have had a negative effect on then candidate Obama's quest to become President. This blackout was so complete that the New York Times report on the gaffe made it into print for the first time in November of 2011!!
So don't expect any stories in the near future on whether the President and his family are sending the wrong message with their lavish lifestyle. It will be left to the alternative media, cable news and a few bloggers to document the excesses the First Family calls relaxation. This is just one example of the journalistic malpractice that has been SOP since Barak Obama came on the scene.
I remember the 1992 Presidential election when the media made fun of President Bush the elders being "amazed" when he saw a supermarket scanner. This story supposedly showed how out of touch he was with the working man since he was unfamiliar with the scanner. The problem was this story wasn't true. The media ran with this story and never corrected the erroneous report. They got their message through though- Bush was an elitist.
I doubt today's intrepid reporters will never file any stories asking if the way the Obamas live shows that they are out of touch with the citizenry. They might lose their membership in the Obama Fan Club if they did.
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