What is your opinion of the Martha’s Vineyard flap?
With 14 million Americans out of work, a volatile stock market and a historic downgrade of the country’s credit rating, President Obama [began] a 10-day retreat Thursday at a 28-acre Martha’s Vineyard compound called Blue Heron Farm, which costs an estimated $50,000 per week to rent. That divide — and the presumed hypocrisy of a President who has pledged not to rest “until every American looking for a job can find one,” going golfing and biking on an island playground for wealthy celebrities — has been too much for political pundits to resist. — The Washington Post
Obama’s decision to head to a popular playground for wealthy elites in the face of intense media scrutiny is a surprisingly reckless move. It is a particularly foolish act just 14 months away from a presidential election where he will likely end up the underdog rather than the favourite. The contrast between an imperious, out-of-touch U.S. President and the economic plight of tens of millions of Americans could not be starker. Obama’s holiday will no doubt come to haunt him in November next year, with the economy the number one issue for voters. This is a U.S. presidency with a distinctly Upstairs Downstairs approach towards running the country. At the end of the day, Barack Obama is in a serious state of denial if he believes the U.S. electorate won’t care if their president acts with impunity at a time of tremendous economic turmoil and uncertainty.
Which begs the question – why did the president go ahead with his vacation despite the worst approval ratings of his presidency, plunging stock markets, falling consumer confidence, and overwhelming public disillusion with his handling of the economy? I think the answer lies in Obama’s professorial-style arrogance, and a condescending approach towards ordinary Americans. — Niles Gardiner, Daily Telegraph of London
Ponder an even more intriguing question about the most gas-guzzling, tone-deaf President:
Instead of playing Scrabble this evening, try the popular new board game Obama Geography to learn what the unintentionally transparent President is thinking as every morning he boards a flight for a carefully chosen destination.
Did you notice that on his scrupulously scripted bus tour last week of three Middle Western states he badly needs for next year — traveling a modest 350-mile circuit — he pretended explosive, boiling angry Wisconsin did not exist?
The why is easy.
Too darned risky for a leader who only wants to be seen as adored, especially with his approval rating in the 30s and his handling of the economy in the 20s.
Throughout the recent hyperbolic half-year temper tantrum that Wisconsin labor unions and their robotic minions threw after Gov. Walker trimmed their collective bargaining abilities to sensible levels, King Swish must have handed his tongue to a neighborhood cat. Not a word did he utter, this from an egomaniac who gives daily “exclusive” interviews after his daily television appearances. From February through August, the best-pal of the working man, who cares deeply about the poor and the middle class and hates the millionaires and billionaires he vacations with, arrogantly aimed his nose where airplanes fly.
Those middle class boys and girls who pledged their fealty this year to their Wisconsin labor unions — ahead only of God, family and country— they are on their own, says President Me-First, You Next.
For all of their bluster, fist-shaking, bullying and mockery, the chagrinned labor unions of Wisconsin were whipped last month when they sought to recall three Republican state senators in attempting to snatch the majority in the Legislature away from the governor and his party. Democrats lost three heavily hyped elections in a row in a state that the Swish won by 14 points in the long ago year of 2008.
Mr. Obama’s advisors chose Iowa, Minnesota and his sort of “home” state of Illinois because they are politically benign this summer. You didn’t see a protest or unfriendly question.
By looking as if he randomly chose battleground states that were behaving tamely, he would look like a big brave wolf venturing boldly into enemy territory. Whatta guy. Mah hero.
As for Martha’s Vineyard, Wrong Way Obama has struck again in the third year of a reign in which he has been constantly harassed by bad luck and policies drenched in ignorance and unawareness. Thankfully, nothing that has gone wrong has been his fault, he says.
Peggy Noonan, my thoughtful cousin by divorce, wrapped up Wrong Way’s Martha’s Vineyard misstep concisely at a time when the country is going to San Pedro in a handbasket: “If you’re a liberal President, you probably shouldn’t be on vacation at a place known for snooty liberal insularity.” The Vineyard has “a history of problems admitting blacks, Jews and the self-made sons of Dad’s old half-Irish half-Puerto Rican cook.”
And on his Middle West campaign stops, Ms. Noonan espied flaws in Wrong Way’s reckless rhetoric:
The President was dropping his g’s, always a terrible sign, a kind of bowing that assumes he speaks from a great height. He also started saying “folks” again. That, too, is a tell. It’s the word politicians who think they’re better than normal people use when they’re trying to make normal people think they’re normal.
It seems important to him to be true to himself — not to be the kind of person who would poll-test a vacation. Or maybe he thinks that no matter what he does, it won’t work, so what the heck. But his decision to go now, and there, seems either hamhanded or vaguely defiant.
