Present this:
- Barack Obama's failed presidency suffered two more setbacks this week. One, of course, was the passage of the toughest financial regulations reform since the '30s. The other was his outrageous decision to take his family to Maine for the weekend. The MSM is stunned:
(CNN) -- President Obama and his family left Washington Friday for a weekend getaway to Maine, but along with a little rest and relaxation comes criticism that the president is taking it easy with the Gulf of Mexico oil crisis in a critical phase.
The Obamas plan to spend the weekend on Mount Desert Island, home of Acadia National Park. The trip marks the president's third vacation since the oil disaster began in April. <...>
Just for the record, in 18 months, president Obama had 65 vacation days including time spent at Camp David. At the 18 month mark of Dubya's disaster, he had taken 120 vacation days which included 13 trips to Crawford "Wrench". All in all, Bush took 487 days at Camp David and 490 days in Texas, the equivalent of almost 2.7 years in his 8 years in the Oval office. ONE THIRD of his entire Presidency, including the entire month just before 9/11.
But it's not just the media who's shocked, the role model for public service - also known as the Republican Party - just can't take this negligence anymore.
Booman:
...The Republican National Committee launched a website blasting what it considers Obama's "leisure activities or missteps" during the oil disaster. I sure don't recall a website by the Democratic National Committee devoted to attacking Bush for his many vacations -- ever, much less one pointing out the time the time he took off to cut brush while his national security experts were warning that Al Qaeda was poised to attack the United States.
I'm not providing a link for that site by the way. Search it out if you like fallacious and nonsensical information about our "lazy" Democrat President from the party who gave us this man to lead this nation:
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Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons said the Republican criticism is "galling," considering Bush's frequent trips to Camp David and his home in Crawford, Texas. "Barack Obama is working as hard as any president that we've had in recent history and certainly harder than the most immediate previous president," he said.
Jamal Simmons is right. Not that anything is going to change. The majority of the press will still go after Obama 1000 times harder than they ever went after Bush because of what too many of them have allowed themselves become: mouthpieces for Republicans, conservatives and corporate lobbyists always willing to publicize the talking points which criticize Democrats in order to prove that they do not have a "liberal bias."
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And as the most awesome Gail Collins wrote in her BRILLIANT column today:
"Presidents are certainly entitled to vacation, just like everybody else, but there is a fine line as to when presidents should do it, what they should and where they should do it," a former member of George W. Bush’s staff told CNN. The staff member in question, Brad Blakeman, was in charge of appointments and scheduling. Surely there is nobody better qualified to discuss this important subject than the man who helped the previous president get out of town for a third of his entire time in office.
- If that's not enough, the lazy president played Golf. Again. This was too much for the new speaker of the House, the world-class-workaholic, John Boehner. Digby:
Last year Jake Sherman at Politico did a little digging into Boehner's golfing shenanigans. Boehner's PAC spent over 80 grand on golfing outings in the first half of the year. "And the minority leader," Sherman wrote, "doesn’t hold his events at worn-out municipal courses. The most recent outing was a $20,921.34 event at the plush Robert Trent Jones track in Gainesville, Va., an invitation-only private club that was once also home to the Professional Golfers Association's President’s Cup."
The Republicans are so obtuse that they are actually running a campaign criticizing Obama for being a golfer, when their own House Minority leader spends more time on the golf course than Tiger Woods. It virtually defines the word hubris.
They can't get away with that...Nobody's going to do this stuff if we don't do it.
- Still from Gail's brilliance - happy to link her twice ("Let’s repeal the oil spill and start all over"! :):):):
...Who says that Boehner just hangs out at bars and tanning parlors and doesn’t work hard? The man is tireless! Everybody else was exhausted, but he wanted to start over.
...Most Republicans are not joining Boehner in his call to repeal the financial reform bill because they are too busy calling for the repeal of health care reform. The bill should be scrapped and replaced with much better ideas," said Mario Rubio, the Republican Senate candidate in Florida.
Rubio’s own idea is to eliminate the requirement that healthy people have insurance, but keep the part that says insurance companies have to cover people with pre-existing conditions. This sounds like the ideal solution — no one would have to buy insurance until they got sick, and then they could make the companies sell them a whole bunch of coverage. I don’t know why nobody thought of this before...
Really, go read it. And after you'll laugh hysterically, you may feel like crying, because this is where we're heading if these idiots will retake power.
- But, Americans are not as stupid as the GOBP thinks, and even if their memory can be short, the trauma of Bush years is still deep enough to scare them:
Bloomberg poll: Americans Blame Bush, Not Obama, for Deficit, Jobs, Afghan War.
"Bush was there for eight years and everything just kept getting worse," says poll participant Kelly Redding, 31, an independent voter from Columbus, Ohio. "Obama can’t perform miracles overnight."
Jeremy Dawson, 31, who has served three tours in Iraq, is among those who blame Bush more than Obama for some of the nation’s biggest problems.
"He focused so much on Iraq and Afghanistan and not enough on America," says Dawson, who votes as an independent. "There was little or nothing being done in this country."
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We just have to make sure that we remind them every day. EVERY DAY. VP Biden, last night:
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So, the president is on a weekend break, and the people are angery. I tell you! THEY ARE ANGRY!!!!
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Panama City Beach, Fla., July 12, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton)
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President Obama shoots baskets on the White House basketball court with Justin Friedlander and his family, July 6, 2010. Friedlander, who was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor in March, 2009, has launched an initiative called "Justin’s Quest," in which he will shoot 40,000 basketball shots, one for every person diagnosed with a primary brain tumor each year in the United States. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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President Barack Obama greets departing Associate Counsel to the President Alison J. "Ali" Nathan, left, Meg Satterthwaite, and their twin sons Oliver and Nathan, in the Outer Oval Office, July 7, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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Cub Scout Raphael Cash from Bowie, Md., prior to a meeting with a group of Boy Scouts of America youth members and executive leaders in the Oval Office, July 12, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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Fort McNair in Washington, D.C., July 3, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)
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The Blue Room of the White House, July 4, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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Fourth of July celebration on the South Lawn of the White House, July 4, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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July 4, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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With Sen. Robert Byrd family, at the West Virginia State Capitol in Charleston, W.Va., July 2, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)