August 22, 2011
NYC Letter: Hardest Working Man In Show Business -- The Jobs Plan
Day 944 of CHOPE
Mr. Obama recently concluded a three-day presidential bus tour. Because it was an "official event" -- not on the hustings -- taxpayers picked up the tab. Nonetheless Mr. Obama campaigned. He also promoted his jobs plan (or jobs plan outline), which he hasn't written yet and won't present until September, and threw in a "Made In America" sop from his luxury bus built in Canada (one of two purchased at $1.1M apiece*). Then, exhausted from mixing with the little "folks", Mr. Obama flew -- Mrs. Obama taking an earlier supererogatory taxpayer flight -- to a $50K/wk rental in Martha's Vineyard to mix with the monied "folks" and write that all important jobs plan or jobs plan outline -- or jobs plan rehash. [Pause.] Two words. Op. Tics.
Mark Steyn at NRO comments:
Symbols are important. In other circumstances, the Obamas’ vacation on Martha’s Vineyard might not be terribly relevant. But this is a president who blames his dead-parrot economy on "bad luck" — specifically, the Arab Spring and the Japanese tsunami: As Harry S. Truman would have said, the buck stops at that big hole in the ground that’s just opened up over in Japan. Let us take these whiny excuses at face value and accept for the sake of argument that Obama’s Recovery Summer would now be going gangbusters had not the Libyan rebels seized Benghazi [Ed: That's nine months after "Recovery Summer" failed to arrive] and sent the economy into a tailspin. Did no one in the smartest administration in history think this might be the time for the president to share in some of the "bad luck" and forgo an ostentatious vacation in the exclusive playground of the rich? When you’re the presiding genius of the Brokest Nation in History, enjoying the lifestyle of the super-rich while allegedly in "public service" sends a strikingly Latin American message. Underlining the point, the president then decided to pass among his suffering people by touring small town Minnesota in an armored Canadian bus accompanied by a 40-car motorcade. In some of these one-stoplight burgs, the president’s escort had more vehicles than the municipality he was graciously blessing with his presence.
Mr. Obama is not without his defenders.
GIBBS DEFENDS OBAMA'S
VINEYARD VACATION
August 21, 2011 (Politico) - Pressed on whether images of Obama vacationing convey a sense of urgency about the economy, Gibbs answered, "The sense of urgency has been with the president each and every day."The president’s former spokesman went on to call criticism surrounding Obama’s summer retreat "a political game."
Only a political hack would stoop to play that game.
Gibbs said he has "no doubt, right now, that the president is likely sitting in Martha’s Vineyard getting an update" on current events.The first pool report from Martha’s Vineyard on Sunday said the first family was spending the morning at the beach and the president has no public statements planned "at this point."
URGENCY!
Quick Before It Melts!
CHOPE.
On the job on vacation.
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* Ed Morrisey at Hot Air enumerates several resident American companies that would have been glad for the business -- and the American jobs:
That’s bad enough, but buying two buses from a Canadian company while promising to create jobs in the US is the worst kind of optics imaginable. Why not use a manufacturer based in the US? I’m certain that Complete Coach Works in California could use the work, for instance, or North American Bus Industries in Alabama. Setra USA manufactures its buses in Greensboro, North Carolina, a key state that Obama could easily lose in 2012. Wouldn’t a $2.2 million buy there have turned a few heads? For that matter, Obama could have bought them from Motor Coach Industries and picked them up in his home state of Illinois at the start of his tour.Posted by Damian at August 22, 2011 11:45 PM
