Sacrifice is for the little people: Michelle Obama vacations in Vail, Co.

WTF, Michelle is on another lavish vacation?

Vail Daily: VAIL, Colorado — First lady Michelle Obama is among the Presidents Day weekend crowd.

Obama arrived Friday night for a weekend of skiing in Vail and Beaver Creek, according to local sources.

A motorcade of about a dozen vehicles, including 15 state and local law enforcement officers, traveled from the Eagle County Regional Airport to Vail on Friday night, according to the Colorado State Patrol. Roads were temporarily blocked to make way for the motorcade in Eagle.

The motorcade entered an underground garage beneath the Sebastian hotel in Vail Village shortly after 9:30 p.m.[MORE]

A few of bloggers are pointing out the hypocrisy of the Obamas because of this little lecture on sacrifice from The Won:

They are right.  One of the things leaders are expected to do is lead by example.  Obama had the misfortune of being elected a Recessionary President.  Fair or not,being a Recessionary President means you have to tighten your belt just like the regular folks. The Obamas just don't seem to get it (and it appears neither does Joe Biden)

Via: Memeorandum

Via: Vail Daily

Via: The Palm Beach Post

Back to the Future, the Presidential Edition

I have said it many times before, Image Counts!  I just cannot believe how badly this administration handles optics.  During the campaign, they were so slick with optics and now it is Amateur Night at the Apollo.

Turning over a presser to a limelight loving ham like Bill Clinton is just plain foolish, but when that the limelight loving ham is VERY good at stealing the show, it becomes a first class brain dead maneuver.  I think the worst part of the episode had to be Obama’s excuse for leaving. He needed to attend Christmas Parties with Michelle, seriously?  It would have been far better to say something like; he had a meeting with Republicans, Ben Bernanke, a foreign dignitary or anything that sounded he was doing important work for the people.

Also did you notice how Bill Clinton did not even waste five seconds sending Obama on his way? It was almost like Obama was merely Clinton’s errand boy and not the POTUS.  I think this presser is going to be Obama’s Pet Goat moment.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: Mediaite       

Queen Michelle’s Spanish Holiday

You know Michelle Obama crossed the line when the liberal New York Daily News says she is acting like Marie Antoinette!

Sacrifice is something that many Americans are becoming all too familiar with during this economic downturn. It was a key theme in President Obama's inaugural address to the nation, and he's referenced it numerous times when lecturing the country on how to get back on its feet.

But while most of the country is pinching pennies and downsizing  summer sojourns - or forgoing them altogether - the Obamas don't seem to be heeding their own advice. While many of us are struggling, the First Lady is spending the next few days in a five-star hotel on the chic Costa del Sol in southern Spain with 40 of her "closest friends." According to CNN, the group is expected to occupy 60 to 70 rooms, more than a third of the lodgings at the 160-room resort. Not exactly what one would call cutting back in troubled times.

Reports are calling the lodgings of  Obama's Spanish fiesta, the Hotel Villa Padierna in Marbella, "luxurious," "posh" and "a millionaires' playground." Estimated room rate per night? Up to a staggering $2,500. Method of transportation? Air Force Two.

To be clear, what the Obamas do with their money is one thing; what they do with ours is another. Transporting and housing the estimated 70 Secret Service agents who will flank the material girl will cost the taxpayers a pretty penny. […] 

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 toEurope to meet with Spanish royalty isn't the visual the White House probably wants to project. Perhaps they've forgotten the damning image of John Kerry, on the eve of the 2004 election, windsurfing off the coast of Nantucket?

Everyone expect POTUS and FLOTUS to take a few vacations while in office. However, the problem with the Obamas vacationing is both quantity and quality. The Chicago Sun Times details the excess. 

Mrs. Obama’s U.S. Air Force jet landed at Malaga on Wednesday; she skipped celebrating her husband’s 49th birthday with him. (Daughter Malia, 12, is at overnight camp.) Mrs. Obama pays for personal expenses — as do her friends who arrived on their own — but that only covers a small part of the expense. Taxpayers pick up the tab for staff and security at the exclusive hotel and most of the expenses for the plane.

First ladies often go on vacations, with and without the president. An issue for Mrs. Obama may be how many: New York in March; Chicago, over Memorial Day; Los Angeles in June; Camp David — sort of an extension of the White House — in July; Maine in July, to highlight Acadia National Park, and now Spain. Mrs. Obama is glamorizing Spain’s coastal resorts before her Aug. 14 first family weekend visit to Florida’s Gulf Coast, to encourage tourists scared away by the oil spill. Starting Aug. 19, the Obamas will spend 10 days in Martha’s Vineyard. 

I have mentions in several past posts that since taking office the Obamas have become tone deaf to the images they put out. I think it is time to revise that from tone deaf to simply not caring. How could the Obama's not realize how unseemly this excess looks, especially given the weak job numbers out today.

When Obama asked for the job, he knew his would be a recession presidency.  As such some of the usual glamour of the job would have to be curtailed (at least until the economy showed strong signs of recovery).  Yet once in office, just like with his economic policies, Obama does exactly the opposite of what is called for. He even steps on the accelerator when going the wrong way.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: The New York Daily News

Via: The Chicago Sun Times

Via: CNBC

Welcome to Club 1600 – The Ultimate Escape From Reality

As you read the story below and view the pictures I want you to keep this quote from Obama in you mind: 

"We saw 400,000 jobs lost in the auto industry in the year before this restructuring even began. I will not pretend the hard times are over. Difficult days lie ahead. More jobs will be lost. More plants will close. More dealerships will shut their doors, and so will many parts suppliers.

"But I want you to know that what you're doing is making a sacrifice for the next generation." -- Obama June 2009 on the auto bailouts 

Byron York Washington Examiner: Wednesday night’s White House state dinner for Mexican President Felipe Calderon was, as far as the dinner itself was concerned, a fairly routine, if sumptuous, affair.  The East Room was a grand setting, and First Lady Michelle Obama brought in a favored Chicago chef to put together a complex and expensive menu.  “The main course of Oregon wagyu beef came with a Oaxacan black mole sauce with more than 20 ingredients that takes days to come together,” reported the Associated Press.

Of course state dinners are supposed to be special.  But where the Obama/Calderon affair really hit the heights was in the festivities after the dinner, which took place in a huge tent — the word “tent” doesn’t quite do it justice — set up on the South lawn.  As the AP reported:

R&B diva Beyonce topped the entertainment bill for the dinner, taking place in the East Room of the White House, with the action later moving to a luxury marquee on the South Lawn of the presidential mansion. The marquee, the size of two-thirds of a football field, decked out in elaborate black decor and nightclub-style lighting, featured a stage and baskets of flowers and models of Monarch butterflies dangling from the ceiling.

It was a scene the most ostentatious party-giver would have envied: the White House turned into a luxurious, high-dollar nightclub. (Club 1600, perhaps?) But there’s no need for further description, because the White House photographer has posted several pictures of the action on the White House Flickr photostream, and they tell the story best.  For example, there’s this shot of the crowd listening to the entertainment: ...

You know what this spectacle reminds me of, all those dime store dictators and despots who live high off the hog as their people suffer. Castro and Kim Jung Il readily come to mind. Perhaps this “let them eat cake” attitude really is part of the statist ideal.

It really chafes me when I think how this gaudy display was paid for with money stolen from our children’s future and for what? To celebrate a little lying hypocrite who comes over here to bad mouth one of our states? This is just too much to be believed. 

If any of the GOP 2012 hopefuls are really smart, they will uses these images for one hell of an attack ad.

Via: Memorandum

Via: The Washington Examiner

Via: UK Telegraph 

What does this photo say to you?

Glenn Reynolds from Instapundit found this picture of Obama and Biden on the White House Flickr page. It is starting to make the rounds on the blogosphere. Those on the left find nothing wrong with the picture and some think it is cool. On the right, much analysis is going on.

Personally, as a photographer this shot would have been in my discard pile. The reduced size image makes Obama look sleepy or worse yet, tipsy (Obama's eyes are open in high resolution version below). Sleepy or tipsy looking images of the president should be an automatic red flag to discard the image for any photographer. 

Even the high resolution version leaves much to be desired.  Obama looks like he has contempt for Biden (given Joe "The Gaff Machine" Biden's  performance this year, that maybe a possibility). This again reminds me of how this administration seems to have become oblivious to the images they project to the public. Once again White House, image counts.

               

What does the image say to you guys? Do you have any clever captions?

Via: Memeorandum

Via: Instapundit

A brief word about Obama’s Hawaiian vacation

I said it before and I will say it again, image counts.

First of all, unemployment is over 10% (17% if you are really counting). That means that this Christmas many Americans no doubt had a severely limited or no Christmas at all. Needless to say vacationing for these unemployed Americans was strictly out of the question.  So why isn’t our president at least making the attempt to appear like he shares their pain?  Spending Christmas at the White House or Camp David would have at least conveyed the message that these are tough times and we are all feeling the pinch.

This is the least thing wrong with Obama’s vacation. The failed Christmas bomber is much bigger. Remember how some people raked Bush over the coals for continuing to read that book to the school kids at the onset of 9/11?  Well this is looking a whole lot worse. We have what appears to be a genuine Al Qaeda attempt that failed simply by the grace of God.  Homeland Security Clown Janet Napolitano is not making anyone feel safe with her bizarre world explanations that the system is working. Even CBS’s lame attempt to spin is pathetic.  Fighting terror via conference calls and BlackBerry looks like a half ass attempt to everybody.

Finally, once again revolution seems to be stirring in Iran. Aside from the military option, revolution is our second best chance for foiling Iran’s nuclear ambitions. So where is our fearless leader while this second opportunity unfolds?  Golfing and island hopping out in Hawaii, of course!

My advice to Obama: get your ass home and handle the people’s business!

Via: Memeorandum

Via: CBS News

Via: The Jawa Report

Image Counts

If there was one thing that the Obama campaign did superbly well, it was to control the image of the candidate. The campaign portrayed Obama as sensitive to middle class needs. Remember that photo of Obama with his feet upon a desk and holes in each of his soles? What about Joe Biden commuting daily on Amtrak? Who can forget Michelle Obama with her simple frock on The View? Also remember how the Obama campaign mocked John McCain and his wife for their excess wealth and multiple homes?

What a difference a year makes.

Gone is any pretense to avoid the elitist label. Today it is Waygu steak dinners at the White House, date night in New York City, $600 sneakers, shopping in Paris and expensive handbags, all in the face of a worsening recession.

To be fair, under normal circumstances, such things for a president are inconsequential. No one would or should notice. Presidential travel, White House dinners and displays of personal wealth are all part of the job. However, these are not normal times.

As job losses mount daily and inflation is barking at our door, Americans everywhere are tightening their belts, doing without and curtailing their excesses. Given these circumstances, it would be nice to know that our president shares in our discomfort. Image counts!

It isn’t like Obama did not know he would be a "Recession President". So why be so obvious with the elitist image? Where are those media savvy people who worked on his campaign? Is there no one there to tell Obama and Michelle to tone it down a tad?

To make matters worse, it isn’t just the personal displays of conspicuous consumption. The Obama administration has displayed carelessness with the spending of our tax dollars. For example, the New York City flyover photo op that cost almost $400,000, expanding the size of his cabinet with the excessive use of czars, spending heavily on communications despite have an extremely cozy White House Press Corp. Just today we learned that $18 million is being spent to redesign recovery.gov!

As polls are starting to show that disillusionment with Obama is starting to set in with the electorate, these images of excess during a time of recession will only add fuel to the fire.

My advice for Obama is to return to the carefully crafted images of being middle class. Instead of date night in New York, how about a simple picnic on the White House lawn eating the vegetables Michelle planted in the garden. He only has to pretend to be austere until he fixes the economy like he promised!