‘Tis the season for confusion and controversy about President Obama’s family vacations, stirred up by the likes of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
That’s not to say that the subject of Obama’s vacation track record is confined only to Christmastime debate, as evidenced by a new YouTube video taking aim at the issue.
The last round of “Attack First, Check Facts Later” came in August, when the man with perhaps the most demanding job on Earth took his family on vacation to Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the Massachusetts coast.
As everyone with a clue knew, the nation was still embroiled in economic crisis. But being merely mortal, being a husband and the father of two young daughters in addition to being the president, the man still needed some family time away from the Washington DC fishbowl. To his credit, despite all the criticism, he did what he had to do for his family.
There was an inevitable flare-up of right wing (but not the least bit righteous) indignation about that decision, a no-news firestorm built and fanned by Fox News, conservative websites, Talk Radio, and publicity hounds like...
Donald Trump, who back when it was his turn to be riding high on the madcap merry-go- round of GOP presidential wannabes, was one of the leaders of the pack of senselessly opportunistic wolves trying to turn Obama's well-earned and much-needed family vacation into some kind of red meat Unhappy Meal for the always-hungry Anti-Obama base.
The president ignored all that claptrap. He came back from that family vacation and rolled out one family-friendly initiative after another in the months that followed; efforts to help the unemployed, college students, veterans, teachers, police officers, firefighters, working and middle class families, and countless other at-risk Americans.
Yet as Christmas approached, we started hearing the same kinds of confabulations, misstatements and insinuations that we did in August, about how Obama takes way too much vacation time, and never at the right times.
But the new “GOT Truth” video sets the record straight about the first nearly three years of the Obama presidency. Bottom line is, Obama has taken a lot less vacation than his immediate predecessor, George W. Bush. He has taken less time off than President Ronald Reagan. And he and the First Lady have paid for family vacations like the one to Martha’s Vineyard, with their own money.
Facts matter, and Truth counts…then and now.
Then, there was no pressing legislative action needing to be taken to save middle class Americans from imminent danger and hardship - as is the case now, with the payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits scheduled to run out for millions of people at the end of the month, unless Congress acts at the president’s urging and extends both.
Even though what Barack Obama, the man, husband and father most needs now, after an intensely hard-driving last three to four months on the job, is some restorative time with his wife and daughters; he has pledged to stay behind in Washington until Congress does right by the 99-Percent.
He will send the family off on the their traditional winter visit to his birthplace state of Hawaii without him at their side, if that’s what it takes to help shame his GOP opponents into abandoning their vindictive version of ‘The Grinches Who Stole Christmas”.
Rich men with lavish tastes and histories of serving the interests of the 1-percent over the 99-percent, men like Mitt Romney, Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich; they continue to point and wag their fingers at President Obama for taking vacations.
But do you remember any of them ever saying a word about the vacations of President George W. Bush, who spent almost one out of every three days of his eight years in office on vacation?
If only we could get all the shamelessly inaccurate, self-serving partisan grandstanding about Obama’s vacations to go on permanent vacation…now that would be some real news.
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