Barack Obama is angry that he is taking heat for keeping a campaign promise. No, no — it’s not the promise to be transparent. He’s broken that promise into so many pieces that the repair shop called and said he’s better off buying a new transparency. And it’s not the promise to change the tone of politics in Washington: his airing of the pettiest of grievances toward imagined offenders has the country more bitterly divided than ever.
It’s a “campaign” promise he made to his lovely wife, Michelle. He promised the one who wears the broad shoulders in the family that he would take her to New York after the election “for one of their ‘date nights’ — dinner and a Broadway play.”
You know, just when you thought the big lug couldn’t get any more lovable. . .! Think about it. Gives the country the middle finger when it comes to Afghanistan, turns his back on an ailing economy to attempt to radicalize the health care industry, and fills his administration with people who believe America’s biggest sin is that it hasn’t bent over backward far enough to be more like Europe, and his chief priority is keeping his promise to take the missus out for a big night? I thought her big night was hip hop night at the White House. (By the way, rumors are flying that the president has banned hip hop from the White House. Say it ain’t so. What will Congresswoman Barbara Lee and the rest of the Hip Hop Caucus Institute think?)
But I digress. Obama told The New York Times Magazine for an article appearing in the Nov. 1 issue that he was pee-ohed at conservative commentators and Republican officials for making his date into a political issue. “If I weren’t president,” he said, “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. That would please me greatly.” His not being president would please me greatly, too.
Unfortunately for the world’s most dedicated husband, presidents are restricted to traveling by secure government aircraft and vehicles. That means that an evening out on the town for the first couple costs the American taxpayers a pretty penny. Naturally, the penny wouldn’t have been nearly as pretty if they elected to, say, eat in Washington (I hear the city has one or two restaurants that isn’t a McDonald’s) and go the Kennedy Center afterwards, but — hey! — a promise is a promise. And what the hell business is it of ours anyway? Oh, that’s right.
Comments 13
I believe fuster would explain to us that this was just an example of “redistribution.”
October 29th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Yawn.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:33 am
@ George Jochnowitz:
George, come again?!
October 29th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
@Howard Portnoy:
The President’s dinner is not connected to the issue of national security. As you wrote, “And what the hell business is it of ours anyway?”
October 29th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
@ George Jochnowitz:
The words you added in quotes were meant to be ironic, as the words that follow it in my post (“Oh, that’s right”) indicate.
As to the post in general it was intended in a somewhat lighthearted way. If you didn’t like it, you were free to move on. No one was forcing you to read it. Your comment–especially inasmuch as you a fellow author here–struck me as rude and gratuitous.
October 29th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
@ Howard Portnoy:
Don’t get thinskinned with George, old bud.
Here’s some more of Obama’s broken promises.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/rulings/promise-broken/
October 29th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
@ fuster:
Not your concern, fuster. By the way, I took a look at your list. Atypical for you to be promoting the truth about BO, no matter how painful. What happened? Is he investigating you?
October 29th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Incidentally, I was waiting for the “Promise Keeper” jokes to start, but I guess I’ll have to throw the first spitwad myself.
October 29th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Mister Peanut has a brittle shell, and his flagrant misuse of our returning soldiers bodies at Dover is far more awful than his adolescent carping about those who criticize his evenings out.
As a vet, I groaned “OH NO” each time his midnight trip to Dover Air Force Base was mentioned on the news today. “Oh no, he’s not pulling even this,” I thought. Of course, his conspicuous and phony grief may offend many Americans who can see through the pretense and the smarmy faux concern for our fallen soldiers and the grieving spouses and parents gathered there to meet their loved ones’ bodies.
How dare he stage a photo op and attempt to make political points like that. Everything 0bama does seems to be yet another staged campaign event. He cheapens every genuine feeling as he tries to manipulate us, and he even turns something tragic and private into a public event which of course makes it all about him.
I resent this callow narcissist trying to manipulate me over our fallen heros. I’m not interested in being manipulated by a self absorbed narcissist who thinks he is our savior.
October 29th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Three years ago my wife drove up to Dover with the State Troopers, National Guard and other military folk to meet her brother’s casket and escort him back home. I vividly remember the emotional rawness of that day and will for the rest of my life. I would like to think that Obama’s motives (even though I disagree with just about everything he seems to stand for) were sincere. Only Obama himself knows if this was just a photo op, and for the families of those fallen I certainly hope they never find out if it was. The fact that he seemed to have been followed by a camera crew certainly doesn’t speak well of his cretinous advisers but I find it difficult to divine his motivations. Dover is close enough to the water’s edge that I suggest it would be better to leave this potential disagreement at it –for the families if no one else.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:06 am
@ nokarmahere:
I agree. I wish that some of BO’s fans weren’t using the event to excuse a predictable Bush bash.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:27 am
Sorry, but I think I know this guy. Expect to see footage of this act in a campaign commercial.
He is a true Alinskyite. He stops at nothing, even trying to use the raw grief of military families.
I don’t think it is just the America of local Chambers of Commerce which scares the 0bami. What really scares them is the military, the hundreds of thousands now serving, and the tens of millions of us who served before. We all have friends and families, and many of us vote. Many of us have fought for our country, a scary thought for the propaganda minded leftists.
We love our country. They love their funky, arrogant selves.
October 30th, 2009 at 9:27 am
The camera crew tells it all. According to Lynn Cheney, Bush visited Dover many times to condole with families. He did not take any press along.
At Obama’s visit, just one out of the 19 families involved would permit a photo to be taken of their loved one’s casket. The photo was taken.
October 31st, 2009 at 4:02 pm
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