During a 48-hour trip to Maine, the Obamas packed in a
week's worth of activities. Why does the president insist on vacationing
in overdrive?
posted on July 19, 2010, at 10:50 AM
Obama and his family return from a weekend
vacation in Bar Harbor, Maine. Photo: GettySEE ALL 12 PHOTOS
"President George H.W. Bush did
speed golf," says Politico's Carol E.
Lee. Well, "President Barack Obama does speed vacationing." Obama
and his family took a whirlwind 48-hour vacation to Bar Harbor, ME, last
weekend, packing dozens of tourist stops in their two days outside of
Washington. (Watch
the Obamas race through Maine.) Here's a brief look at what the
Obamas managed to do, and how the 44th president's vacationing habits
compare with his predecessors':
What was on the president's itinerary? Upon
landing Friday afternoon, the First Family took a bike ride in Arcadia
National Forest (90 minutes), hiked Cadillac Mountain (39 minutes),
stopped for ice cream (11 minutes), visited the Bass Harbor Head
Lighthouse (10 minutes), took in a boat ride and lobster dinner (two
hours), skipped rocks and played with the dog (one hour), and played
tennis and swam (two hours). Later, the president and first lady had a
date night (90 minutes). Saturday ticked along at a similar pace,
with five activities in 11 hours.
Why so many activities? "He doesn't get a lot of
time outside of Washington with his family, so he enjoys taking in as
much as he can on these brief trips," explained
White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton. The logistics of
presidential trips also make shorter stops friendlier for locals and
fellow tourists, who are often inconvenienced by the president's
motorcade.
How many presidential vacations have the Obamas taken? The whole family visited Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon last
summer, Martha's Vineyard in late August, Hawaii at Christmas, and
Chicago over Memorial Day. In all, Obama has spent all
or part of 65 days on vacation, including at Camp David, according
to CBS News' Mark Knoller. George W. Bush had spent 120 days on vacation
at the same point in his presidency.
How have other recent presidents vacationed? Bush
spent much of his time outside Washington at his Texas ranch. Ronald
Reagan similarly had a ranch in California, while George H.W. Bush
largely vacationed in Kennebunkport, ME. Richard Nixon owned a house in
Florida, and John F. Kennedy had the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port,
MA. Like Bill Clinton (who frequented Martha's Vineyard), Obama does not
own a summer home.
Was it a working vacation? Undoubtedly. "We in
the press corps who traveled with him didn't see any official activity,"
says
the
Chicago Tribune's
Mike Memoli. But "the president never stops being president."
Still, unlike almost every other vacation the Obama family has taken,
this one was uninterrupted by a notable death (Sen. Ted Kennedy, on
their Martha's Vineyard trip), national security incident (Christmas Day
underwear bomber, on their Hawaii vacation), or disaster (BP spill,
ongoing during their Chicago weekend).
So should presidents even bother taking vacation? Conservatives
have criticized Obama for taking some time off, just as liberals made
sport of Bush for his long trips to Crawford, TX, says
Reihan Salam in The
Daily Beast, and they were equally wrong. Being president is
perhaps the most stressful job in the world, with some of the most
unrealistic expectations placed on it, and "just as we don't want
codeine-sipping insomniacs operating heavy machinery, we have very good
reason to want President Obama to take a restorative weekend off."
Obama poses with a local resident during his trip to the Gulfport, Mississippi. (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
Theodore, Alabama (CNN) - President Barack Obama used a lemon-lime snow cone to show that parts of the Gulf Coast remain unaffected by the oil spill –and that he's fully engaged in the ongoing crisis on a day and a half visit to the region.
At his first stop in Gulfport, Mississippi, the president was briefed by Admiral Thad Allen and other officials on the latest effort to cap and contain the oil. And the president said that many locations are still open for tourism and unaffected by the spill.
"We just want to make sure that people who have travel plans down to the Gulf area remain mindful of that, because if people want to know what can they do to help folks down here, one of the best ways to help is to come down here and enjoy the outstanding hospitality," the president said.
The president said he was updated on the need for better coordination of Skimmers and other assets involved in the effort, so that more oil is kept off area beaches.
Obama said they also discussed concerns about problems residents are facing as they file claims to recover money from BP.
In another Gulf state where the president heads next, there is optimism and despair.
Some residents around Theodore, Alabama, where Obama will tour a staging area in which booms are cleaned and de-contaminated, are glad to be getting the administration's attention.
But one man says it's nothing more than a "photo op." Jim Hall, a retired executive and longtime local resident who has lived and fished on the Gulf since the 1980's, wants the administration to talk less and do more.
There is plenty of pain to go around.
Harry Jemison, the owner of Jemison's Bait-N-Tackel shop reeled in a nice trout that he cooked up for breakfast, but the longtime family business is hurting.
He was on course to realize a record year for his small business. But the oil spill put a stop to his season.
Everyone is "afraid to fish," he said.
Some days he shuts down early. Sunday was so slow that he sent two employees home early.
The ocean views are still spectacular here. Large pelicans are perched on what once was a dock. Sometimes, it's hard to imagine that a crisis bubbles below. Or, in some spots, on the surface.
What to Eat on a $17,600 Date With the President
President Obama hosts a star studded dinner at the Getty mansion with a menu to match
Mr. Obama's 19-hour whirlwind Bay Area fundraising trip filled Sen. Barbara Boxer's wallet with $1.75 million and he used a $17,600 a person dinner at the Getty Mansion in San Francisco to bring in the big bucks.
The president's 80 dinner guests were treated to an elaborate meal prepared by chef Jennifer Johnson, according to SF Gate, who got the scoop on the menu.
Diners were treated to quail egg with caviar and salmon ceviche with jicama and avocado on a tortilla chip as their starting hors d'oeuvres. Next they were served a spring onion-asparagus tartlet with Meyer lemon vinaigrette-dressed frisee salad.
The main course was braised Kobe beef short ribs with potato puree and a salsa verde-topped spring vegetable ragout. And the evening was topped off with buckwheat crepes with roasted cherries and almond ice cream.
Of course guests were given the opportunity to smile and take a picture with their favorite fundraising president. Worth the $17,600 price tag? You tell us.
Obama bemoans 'diversions' of IPod, Xbox era
(AFP)
– 5/9/2010.
HAMPTON, Virginia — US President Barack Obama lamented Sunday that in
the iPad and Xbox era, information had become a diversion that was
imposing new strains on democracy, in his latest critique of modern
media.
Obama, who often chides journalists and cable news outlets
for obsessing with political horse race coverage rather than serious
issues, told a class of graduating university students that education
was the key to progress.
"You're coming of age in a 24/7 media
environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to
all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank all that high
on the truth meter," Obama said at Hampton University, Virginia.
"With
iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, -- none of which I know
how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of
entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means
of emancipation," Obama said.
He bemoaned the fact that "some of
the craziest claims can quickly claim traction," in the clamor of
certain blogs and talk radio outlets.
"All of this is not only
putting new pressures on you, it is putting new pressures on our country
and on our democracy."
Obama, who uses the handful of
Commencement addresses that he delivers each year to meditate on
societal developments broader than the minutiae of everyday politics,
warned the world was at a moment of "breathtaking change."
"We
can't stop these changes... but we can adapt to them," Obama said,
adding that US workers were in a battle with well-educated foreign
workers.
"Education... can fortify you, as it did earlier
generations, to meet the tests of your own time," he said.
Hampton
University is a historically black college, and Obama noted the huge
disparity in educational achievement between African Americans and other
racial groups in the United States and the world.
But he urged
the graduates to take inspiration from the example of Dorothy Height, a
civil and women's rights icon who died, aged 98, last month, who fought
racial prejudice to secure a college education.
"A black woman, in
1929, refusing to be denied her dream of a college education," Obama
said, reprising Height's life story.
"Refusing to be denied her
rights, refusing to be denied her dignity, refusing to be denied... her
piece of America's promise."
Obama argued that from the days of
the pioneer politicians who founded the United States, until the modern
day, education and knowledge had been the key to progress and US
democracy.
He drew a line between Thomas Jefferson, the principal
author of the Declaration of Independence, and today's challenges.
"What
Jefferson recognized... that in the long run, their improbable
experiment -- called America -- wouldn't work if its citizens were
uninformed, if its citizens were apathetic, if its citizens checked out,
and left democracy to those who didn't have the best interests of all
the people at heart.
"It could only work if each of us stayed
informed and engaged, if we held our government accountable, if we
fulfilled the obligations of citizenship."
Obama's 17-minute, 2,500-word response to woman's claim of being 'over-taxed'
by Anne E. Kornblut
CHARLOTTE - Even by President Obama's loquacious standards, an answer he gave here on health care Friday was a doozy.
Toward the end of a question-and-answer session with workers at an advanced battery technology manufacturer, a woman named Doris stood to ask the president whether it was a "wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care" package.
"We are over-taxed as it is," Doris said bluntly.
Obama started out feisty. "Well, let's talk about that, because this is an area where there's been just a whole lot of misinformation, and I'm going to have to work hard over the next several months to clean up a lot of the misapprehensions that people have," the president said.
He then spent the next 17 minutes and 12 seconds lulling the crowd into a daze. His discursive answer - more than 2,500 words long -- wandered from topic to topic, including commentary on the deficit, pay-as-you-go rules passed by Congress, Congressional Budget Office reports on Medicare waste, COBRA coverage, the Recovery Act and Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (he referred to this last item by its inside-the-Beltway name, "F-Map"). He talked about the notion of eliminating foreign aid (not worth it, he said). He invoked Warren Buffett, earmarks and the payroll tax that funds Medicare (referring to it, in fluent Washington lingo, as "FICA").
Always fond of lists, Obama ticked off his approach to health care -- twice. "Number one is that we are the only -- we have been, up until last week, the only advanced country that allows 50 million of its citizens to not have any health insurance," he said.
A few minutes later he got to the next point, which seemed awfully similar to the first. "Number two, you don't know who might end up being in that situation," he said, then carried on explaining further still.
"Point number three is that the way insurance companies have been operating, even if you've got health insurance you don't always know what you got, because what has been increasingly the practice is that if you're not lucky enough to work for a big company that is a big pool, that essentially is almost a self-insurer, then what's happening is, is you're going out on the marketplace, you may be buying insurance, you think you're covered, but then when you get sick they decide to drop the insurance right when you need it," Obama continued, winding on with the answer.
Halfway through, an audience member on the riser yawned.
But Obama wasn't finished. He had a "final point," before starting again with another list -- of three points.
"What we said is, number one, we'll have the basic principle that everybody gets coverage," he said, before launching into the next two points, for a grand total of seven.
His wandering approach might not matter if Obama weren't being billed as the chief salesman of the health-care overhaul. Public opinion on the bill remains divided, and Democratic officials are planning to send Obama into the country to persuade wary citizens that it will work for them in the long run.
It was not evident that he changed any minds at Friday's event. The audience sat politely, but people in the back of the room began to wander off.
Even Obama seemed to recognize that he had gone on too long. He apologized -- in keeping with the spirit of the moment, not once, but twice. "Boy, that was a long answer. I'm sorry," he said, drawing nervous laughter that sounded somewhat like relief as he wrapped up.
But, he said: "I hope I answered your question."
Doctors tell Barack Obama to quit smoking
The American president has been trying to kick the habit for sometime, apart from the smoking he is in excellent health
Barack Obama has had his first medical examination since becoming president. Photograph: Charles Dharapak/AP
Barack Obama is still struggling to kick smoking, according to his first medical examination since becoming president.
Obama is sensitive about his cigarette habit and tetchy with reporters who raise it. But after his 90-minute medical at the Navy hospital outside Washington yesterday morning, his doctors confirmed he had not yet managed to conquer the habit and suggested he "continue smoking cessation efforts".
The doctors said the president used medication to try to ease the pangs, they described it as "nicotine replacement therapy, self-use".
Obama promised Michelle when he embarked on his campaign to become president he would quit, at the time he said he was smoking about eight a day.
He told reporters last year he had quit but still had an occasional cigarette, without specifying how many.
His health was described as excellent and he does not have to return for another medical until 2012. Obama, who is 48, has 20-20 vision, weighs 179 llbs in his shoes and clothes, and requires little medication. Apart from the nicotine replacement, he uses a non-steroid anti-inflammatory medication associated with physical activity: he regularly plays basketball at the White House.
The doctors also recommended "moderation of alcohol intake".
Obama unhappy with criticism of his NYC date night
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama says only once since Jan. 20 has White House life annoyed him.
It was the Saturday in May when, trying to be a good husband, he kept a campaign promise to take his wife, Michelle, to New York after the election for one of their "date nights" - dinner and a Broadway play.
Conservative commentators and Republican officials criticized him for doing so.
"People made it into a political issue," Obama told The New York Times Magazine for an article about the Obamas' marriage, appearing in the Nov. 1 issue. The article was posted on the Times' Web site on Wednesday.
"If I weren't president, I would be happy to catch the shuttle with my wife to take her to a Broadway show, as I had promised her during the campaign, and there would be no fuss and no muss and no photographers," he said. "That would please me greatly."
Presidents, however, don't travel by any means other than secure government aircraft or vehicles.
Obama added: "The notion that I just couldn't take my wife out on a date without it being a political issue was not something I was happy with."
The article explores the effects of the presidency on the couple's 17-year union, and revisits well-documented tension between them in earlier years as Obama pursued his political career in Illinois, leaving Mrs. Obama largely home alone in Chicago with their daughters.
It also delves into her roles in the presidential campaign and in the White House.
Mrs. Obama, who sat with her husband for the interview in the Oval Office, said marriage doesn't necessarily become easier just because a couple moves into a big white house with servants and security at every turn.
"The strengths and challenges of our marriage don't change because we move to a different address," she said. Mrs. Obama said "the bumps" happen to everybody all the time "and they are continuous."
"The last thing we want to project," she said, is the image of a flawless relationship.
"It's unfair to the institution of marriage, and it's unfair for young people who are trying to build something, to project this perfection that doesn't exist," Mrs. Obama said.
Obama Ridicules Olympic Criticism at Fundraiser
Some Republicans criticized Obama for flying to Denmark earlier this month to boost Chicago's Olympics bid.
By Eve Zibel
FOXNews.com
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Obama, in New York for a series of fundraisers, told a friendly audience that he doesn't understand how anybody could root against health care reform, and even more egregious, root against the Olympics.
"What I reject is when some people sit on the sidelines and root for failure on health care, or they root for failure on reforming our energy system, or they root for failure on getting the Olympics," Obama said. "I mean, who's against the Olympics? What's up with that? You know it's a sad thing, isn't it? I mean, I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican, you know. It's the Olympics, come on!"
Obama took heat from Republicans when he flew to Copenhagen in the beginning of October to help the United States Olympic Committee try to win the 2016 games for the city of Chicago.
The president was on the ground in Denmark for about four hours, but Chicago was shut out of contention in the first round of voting, receiving only 19 votes. Rio de Janeiro won the bid.
The loss and the cost of the trip, almost $900,000, led many to say the voyage was not worth the president's time and not worth the money.
Nine-year-old to Obama: 'why do people hate you?'
Oct 15 06:30 PM US/Eastern
Obama, caught up in a divisive political row over his plans for health care reform, called on the boy, Tyren Scott, in a public meeting during his first visit to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans as president.
"I have to say, why do people hate you? They supposed to love you. God is love," Tyren, from Paulina,Louisiana asked.
Obama, appeared tickled by the question, saying "hey, that's what I'm talking about," adding "I did get elected president, so not everybody hates me now... I got a whole lot of votes."
"If you were watching TV lately, it seems like everybody's just getting mad all the time. And you know, I think that you've got to take it with a grain of salt. Some of it is just what's called politics."
OSLO (Reuters) - President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for giving the world "hope for a better future" and striving for nuclear disarmament, in a surprise award that drew both warm praise and sharp criticism.
The decision to bestow one of the world's top accolades on a president less than nine months into his first term, who has yet to score a major foreign policy success, was greeted with gasps of astonishment from journalists at the announcement in Oslo.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Obama for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." But critics -- especially in parts of the Arab and Muslim world -- called its decision premature.
Obama's press secretary woke him with the news before dawn and the president felt "humbled" by the award, a senior administration official said.
When told in an email from Reuters that many people around the world were stunned by the announcement, Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod, responded: "As are we."
The first African-American to hold his country's highest office, Obama, 48, has called for disarmament and worked to restart the stalled Middle East peace process since taking office in January.
"Very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said in a citation.
While the decision won praise from statesmen like Nelson Mandela and Mikhail Gorbachev, both former Nobel laureates, it was also attacked in some quarters as hasty and undeserved.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and opposes a peace treaty with Israel, said the award was premature at best.
"Obama has a long way to go still and lots of work to do before he can deserve a reward," said Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri. "Obama only made promises and did not contribute any substance to world peace. And he has not done anything to ensure justice for the sake of Arab and Muslim causes."
"EMBARRASSING JOKE"
Issam al-Khazraji, a day laborer in Baghdad, said: "He doesn't deserve this prize. All these problems -- Iraq, Afghanistan -- have not been solved...The man of 'change' hasn't changed anything yet."
Liaqat Baluch, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a conservative religious party in Pakistan, called the award an embarrassing "joke."
But the chief Palestinian peace negotiator, Saeb Erekat, welcomed it and expressed hope that Obama "will be able to achieve peace in the Middle East."
Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjoern Jagland rejected suggestions from journalists that Obama was getting the prize too early, saying it recognized what he had already done over the past year.
"We hope this can contribute a little bit to enhance what he is trying to do," he told a news conference.
The committee said it attached "special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons," saying he had "created a new climate in international politics."
Without naming Obama's predecessor George W. Bush, it highlighted the differences in America's engagement with the rest of the world since the change of administration in January.
"Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.
"Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts," it said, and the United States was playing a more constructive role in tackling climate change.
Obama laid out his vision on eliminating nuclear arms in a speech in Prague in April. But he was not the first American president to set that goal, and acknowledged it might not be reached in his lifetime.
He is negotiating arms cuts with Russia, and last month dropped plans to base elements of a U.S. anti-missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. Moscow had seen the scheme as a threat, despite U.S. assurances it was directed against Iran.
On other pressing issues, Obama is deliberating whether to send more troops to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, and is still searching for breakthroughs on Iran's disputed nuclear program and on Middle East peace.
Israel's foreign minister said on Thursday there was no chance of a peace deal for many years. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters: "The Nobel prize for peace? Obama should have won 'the Nobel Prize for escalating violence and killing civilians'."
At home, Obama's popularity is flagging under the pressure of rising unemployment and a divisive, sometimes bitter debate over his healthcare reform plans.
Abroad, he is still widely seen around the world as an inspirational figure.
Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who had been tipped as a favorite for the prize, told Reuters that Obama was a deserving candidate and an "extraordinary example."
Obama's uncle Said Obama told Reuters by telephone from the president's ancestral village of Kogelo in western Kenya: "It is humbling for us as a family and we share in Barack's honor... we congratulate him."
Obama is the third senior U.S. Democrat to win the prize this decade after former Vice President Al Gore won in 2007 along with the U.N. climate panel and Jimmy Carter in 2002.
The prize worth 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.4 million) will be handed over in Oslo on December 10.
(Additional reporting by Oslo newsroom, Kamran Haider in Pakistan, Mohammed Assadi, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Mark Denge in Nairobi, Jason Webb in Spain; writing by Mark Trevelyan, editing by Janet McBride)
Obama’s Olympic failure will only add to doubts about his presidency
Tim Reid in Washington
(Charles Dharapak/AP)
Barack Obama fails to make the case for Chicago to the IOC in Copenhagen!
There has been a growing narrative taking hold about Barack Obama’s presidency in recent weeks: that he is loved by many, but feared by none; that he is full of lofty vision, but is actually achieving nothing with his grandiloquence.
Chicago’s dismal showing today, after Mr Obama’s personal, impassioned last-minute pitch, is a stunning humiliation for this President. It cannot be emphasised enough how this will feed the perception that on the world stage he looks good — but carries no heft.
It was only the Olympic Games, the White House will argue — not a high-stakes diplomatic gamble with North Korea. It is always worthwhile when Mr Obama sells America to the rest of the world, David Axelrod, his chief political adviser, said today. But that argument will fall on deaf ears in the US. Americans want their presidents to be winners.
Mr Obama was greeted — as usual — like a rock star by the IOC delegates in Copenhagen — then humiliated by them. Perception is reality. A narrow defeat for Chicago would have been acceptable — but the sheer scale of the defeat was a bombshell, and is a major blow for Mr Obama at a time when questions are being asked about his style of governance.
At home, it is difficult to turn on a television and not see Mr Obama giving a press conference, or an interview, or at a town hall rally, in his all-out effort to sell his troubled reform the US health insurance system. After three months of enormous exposure, Mr Obama has achieved this: the growing likelihood of ramming a Bill through Congress with — at most — just one Republican vote.
Abroad, Mr Obama promised in his Inauguration address to engage America’s enemies, and he has done just that. He has very little to show for it. Yes, Iran took part in bilateral talks with the US this week over its nuclear weapons programme — but that is something Tehran has wanted for years. There is still a very good chance that the meetings will prove to be an exercise in futility and a time-wasting ploy by Tehran.
Mr Obama also scrapped a plan for a missile defence shield in the Czech Republic and Poland, hoping to get in return Russian co-operation behind new sanctions against Tehran. There was optimism when President Medvedev said “sanctions are seldom productive, but they are sometimes inevitable”. Yet Vladimir Putin, and the Chinese, remain fiercely opposed to sanctions.
Meanwhile, America and its allies are being forced to witness a very public agonising by Mr Obama and his advisers over his Afghan strategy — six months after he announced that strategy.
This has all added to the perception that Mr Obama’s soaring rhetoric — which captured the imagination during last year’s election — is simply not enough when it comes to confronting the myriad challenges of the presidency. His spectacular Olympic failure will only add to that
Obama loves to hear himself talk – about himself. In just 41 speeches so this year, not including this week's big speech at the United Nations, Obama has talked about himself nearly 1,200 times – 1,198 to be exact. (That breaks down to 1,121 “I”s and just 77 "me"s.)
In mythology, Narcissus was the guy who fell in love with his own reflection.
In 2009, he’s the president of the United States.
Instead of adoring his own image, Obama loves to hear himself talk – about himself. In just 41 speeches so far this year, not including this week's big speech at the United Nations, Obama has talked about himself nearly 1,200 times – 1,198 to be exact. (That breaks down to 1,121 “I”s and just 77 “me”s.) And that just includes 34 weekly addresses and his seven major speeches. Count the hundreds of other public speeches and he’d be off the charts.
And if you needed any more confirmation, there was this past Sunday’s Obama-palooza on the network talking head shows. Obama pulled a presidential first, going back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back on five different networks. He hit “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on ABC, “Meet the Press” on NBC, “Face the Nation” on CBS, as well as interviews on both CNN and Univision.
“We’re essentially roadblocking the time by appearing on each station,” David Axelrod, senior adviser to the president, told The New York Times. -- Pretty easy to monopolize a message when you block all five networks. And yes, the media didn’t just let him, they reveled in it. CNN’s Howard Kurtz and others even did stories about Obama’s overexposure, only mildly hinting at the irony that they were making the problem worse at the same time.
The interviews went off as expected. Obama kept his “I” on the nation’s problems. He mustered 387 personal mentions in just 82 minutes of air time. Forget the economy, health care, racism or whatever. Every 13 seconds, Obama was talking about … Obama. Next stop, David Letterman on Sept. 21. You already know the topic.
That’s to be expected for a TV hound like Barack Obama. Martha Joynt Kumar, a political science professor at Towson University in Maryland, said Obama has had nearly three times the number of interviews either Bush or Bill Clinton had at this time in his presidency. The New York Times Caucus blog reported: “As of his seven-month in office mark in August, he had done 114 interviews, compared to 37 by former President George W. Bush and 41 by former president Bill Clinton.”
At this rate, he’ll top all presidents combined by the time he and his ego leave office.
It’s so bad, it’s either humorous or pathetic. Let’s try humorous first. Obama loves himself so much that …
· When he goes to the optometrist, he uses an “I” chart. Bada bing. · When he got his new iPhone, he thought it was named after him. (If GE made it, the phone might have been named after Obama, after all.)
Not bad enough? Then let’s try the pathetic. To do that, we need a point of comparison and few things are more pathetic than Congress.
But Obama can forget the members of Congress. At least he tries to. It doesn’t matter if they’re Republicans, Democrats, Blue Dogs or progressives. Obama outnumbers them – in his own mind. In just 41 speeches, he has mentioned himself more than twice the number of every member of Congress combined.
Remember, there are 435 members of the House. Another 100 in the Senate. And you can throw in five delegates, if you want. That’s 540. In just 41 speeches, Obama talked about himself double all of that. He has enough leftovers to add another state with 59 representatives – or more than any state including California.
That’s also more than a bit ego-maniacal. But call Obama on anything and you are a “racist,” a “hater” or both. Any way you slice it, your opinions are somehow a threat to the body politic – the big “I” in the WhIte House.
The media have gone out of their way to paint this picture. It was especially obvious last weekend when anti-Obama protesters held more than 200 9.12 events around the nation. Tens of thousands of ordinary Americans gathered together to protest the excessive growth in government. How were they treated by America’s sycophantic media?
They're called racists of course. The New York Times’ wacky Maureen Dowd put it all in black and white. She skewered South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson for saying the truth, that Obama lied. Dowd called him a “milquetoast Republican backbencher,” but then proceeded to blast him, other Republicans and pretty much anyone who didn’t vote Obama in the entire state of South Carolina. Dowd went on to remind readers that South Carolina was the “state that fired the first shot of the Civil War.”
That happened in 1861, nearly 150 years ago. That’s what passes for current events in The New York Times.
This past weekend the networks followed that racism theme, repeatedly asking Obama if his opponents were racist. Even Obama didn’t play ball. But racism was still the big issue for the media. They were unwilling to call Obama for his own self interest.
The best we can hope is that one day journalists will wise up and see Obama eye to I.
Dan Gainor is The Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business and Culture. His column appears each week on The Fox Forum and he can be seen on Foxnews.com’s “Strategy Room.”
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