27 Comments

1. Below The Beltway » Blog Archive » Shut Up About Barack & Michelle’s Date Nights, Okay ?:

[...] Steve Green, this is one issue where I’m on President Obama’s side: “If I weren’t president, I [...]

Oct 29, 2009 - 6:13 am 2. Joan of Argghh!:

Absolutely right. But that won’t stop the inane commentary from the perpetually pissed off while the more sober-minded amongst us groan collectively at the damage such whining does.

Which is what makes me think that Leftist operatives must be the ones doing the whining as a subversive tactic. No one I know would begrudge the Pres some date time with his wife.

Oct 29, 2009 - 6:15 am 3. jon:

Agreed. If Obama wants to set up another White House in Chicago for long stretches, if he has a traveling White House, or if he sits in his office all the time, he’ll still be President just as much or little as his predecessors. If disaster occurs while he’s out for dinner, he’s a phone call away anyhow from getting whisked into a helicopter. It’s not as if he’s going to have a Griffin Dunne After Hours evening in New York, though it would be cool if he did.

Oct 29, 2009 - 6:29 am 4. jon:

I also thought that Mark Sanford didn’t do such a bad thing having his vacation fling, since Governors aren’t as important (though he should have left someone in charge.) The using state funds to pay for it, however, is another issue. State business is state business, personal business is personal business, but state money shouldn’t pay for personal business.

Oct 29, 2009 - 6:34 am 5. tim maguire:

I was never a fan of the idea that the president should walk around looking dour whenever something sad happens in the world.

But it’s something we’ve suffered with at least since George Bush smiled post-Katrina and we may have to suffer with it until the last nail is hammered into the coffin of the legacy media, which can’t come soon enough, IMO.

Oct 29, 2009 - 7:56 am 6. rbj:

I would be very happy to leave The Whine alone about his date nights, except for the fact that he and all the other eco-fascists wants to run my life, telling me (actually controlling) my thermostat or how much/how far I can travel. If you are going to hector business executives over “excessive” bonuses when that is the real world way of getting paid and they are actually creating wealth (those who tanked the economy are out) then don’t be such a hypocrite with your own perks.

Oct 29, 2009 - 9:21 am 7. Brad:

(those who tanked the economy are out)

**A fair amount are still in Congress!

Oct 29, 2009 - 10:29 am 8. rbj:

True, Brad. I just wanted to head jon off at the pass on the AIG et al., executives.

Oct 29, 2009 - 10:30 am 9. Marty:

Sure, but it comes with the territory. It’s not like someone forced him to be President

Oct 29, 2009 - 10:44 am 10. Steve Ducharme:

Well it was a promise to his wife made during the campaign.

So we can now say that he HAS live up to one campaign promise.

Bout freaking time..

Now back to the links with you..

Oct 29, 2009 - 11:19 am 11. Casey:

Barry can have all date nights he wants. I just get ticked off when he blows millions of dollars doing so. I suppose that makes me an “inane ..whiner” from Joan’s point of view.

jon, as usual, is clueless about the issue; this time with respect to Governor Sanford. Some of us do take concepts like responsibility seriously. Sanford cheated on his wife; he broke faith. But, hey, no big deal, right jon? I’m sure someone willing to cheat on their spouse would never break any other oaths, like one to the citizens of this country…

Oct 29, 2009 - 11:26 am 12. Pauldow:

Besides the direct hundreds of thousands of dollars the taxpayers have to cough up for their “date”, there’s the hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue from nearby businesses. Many won’t get any customers because of all the security. Vehicle traffic is restricted. Aviation is severely damaged. Anywhere the President goes, they put a 30 mile flight restriction. That’s all non-airline flights in a 2827 square mile area. There can be no flights within 10 miles, and within 10-30 miles there are many restrictions to flights.

If he needs a rest, that’s what Camp David is for.

Oct 29, 2009 - 11:59 am 13. bgates:

Obama is unrelenting in his attacks on personal consumption and the pursuit of happiness by anyone other than Himself. “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times,” He said. The odious First Lady was the same way – “Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual,” but she demands she go back to her life as usual, with no inconvenience from their new position.

And what an inconvenience! If it weren’t for date night in New York, how could they have any fun, besides a dinner from their private chef, a show in their private movie theater, command performances by any of the glamorous people who worship Barack, or any of the perks of office that have some kind of tangential relationship to the office – the state dinners, the appearances in front of adoring masses, the endless series of parties at the White House, all at taxpayer expense, all filled with Obama devotees.

It would be an inconvenience to not take a private jet to Manhattan for an evening at taxpayer expense. Taking that burden upon himself would spare millions of others the mild inconvenience that accompanies Presidential travel, and it would save the taxpayers a few hundred thousand dollars. He will not endure that inconvenience for himself, but he demands the rest of us fly less, drive less, eat less, accept worse medical care, smaller and less comfortable homes….

I’ll agree with him this far: it would please me greatly if he weren’t President, too.

Oct 29, 2009 - 12:13 pm 14. Thomas:

Even Barack Obama should be allowed to go out on a date. It shows that he is human and needs sometime to go out and relax just like the rest of us. Whether you agree with his policies or not, you have to agree that he is probably are most down to earth President we have had in a long time.

Oct 29, 2009 - 12:39 pm 15. Dmac:

That last comment must be some kind of a bad parody, right? This is the most narcissistic, navel – gazing, elitist POTUS we’ve ever had in our lifetimes. This sounds remarkably like his earlier whining about “just let me finish eating my waffles” rant during his election run. I could care less what he does on his free time, but why on earth does he need to tie up mid – Town Manhattan for four hours? And with the ginormous security apparatus and escort? And we’re supposed to believe that it’s not all about him? Please.

Oct 29, 2009 - 1:54 pm 16. xj:

By presidential standards, Barry’s a piker. FDR once commandeered an entire Navy cruiser so he could go deep-sea fishing:

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/409-a-map-of-fdrs-vacation/

And hey, it’s better than that time he flew Airforce One low over downtown Manhattan and scared the bejesus out of everyone…

Oct 29, 2009 - 2:48 pm 17. Tweets that mention Vodkapundit » Saturday Night’s All Right for Dating -- Topsy.com:

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Oct 29, 2009 - 5:30 pm 18. McGehee:

It shows that he is human

His critics already knew that. It’s his supporters who need to figure it out.

Oct 29, 2009 - 6:59 pm 19. jon:

Casey, cheating on a spouse is not good, but it’s not something I’d consider worth kicking someone out of office for (though other, related issues should cost him the job.) Yes, it showed that Sanford’s character is not good, but if being a sleaze at times makes someone unfit for office then we’d have very few leaders left.

xj, Obama wasn’t even in the plane at the time. I think the fact that he wasn’t scheduled to be in the area is an added part of what scared people so much.

Oct 29, 2009 - 7:46 pm 20. jsallison:

I don’t have an issue with date night, as pres some stuff is going to be downright strange. I DO have an issue with that whole corrupt socialist Chicago hack thing…

Oct 29, 2009 - 8:19 pm 21. mike:

well part of the issue here is the hypocrisy by the MSM…if GWB had taken his wife out to a diner in Gaithersburg, the MSM would have been all over him about the waste of taxpayer’s money, how much time he was spending eating out, etc.

Oct 29, 2009 - 8:25 pm 22. Alsadius:

I prefer that even bad Presidents stay sane, and telling them that they’re locked into the pressure cooker for 4-8 years with no escape is not the best way to achieve that. And the “It was at taxpayer expense” line is pure nonsense – everything he will ever do for the rest of his life will be at taxpayer expense. Yeah, the nominal salary is nothing special, but the perks are like no other job on the planet. And that’s true whether he spends the night in Broadway, the White House, or his old recliner in Chicago.

Also, Stephen, I know you probably read this yourself already or will soon, but I’m curious about your take on this post, mostly because I know it’ll be hilarious no matter whether you’re pro- or anti-.

Oct 29, 2009 - 10:53 pm 23. Alsadius:

I prefer that even bad Presidents stay sane, and telling them that they’re locked into the pressure cooker for 4-8 years with no escape is not the best way to achieve that. And the “It was at taxpayer expense” line is pure nonsense – everything he will ever do for the rest of his life will be at taxpayer expense. Yeah, the nominal salary is nothing special, but the perks are like no other job on the planet. And that’s true whether he spends the night in Broadway, the White House, or his old recliner in Chicago.

Also, Stephen, I know you probably read this yourself already or will soon, but I’m curious about your take on this post, mostly because I know it’ll be hilarious no matter whether you’re pro- or anti-.
Oops…forgot to say great post! Looking forward to your next one.

Oct 30, 2009 - 4:48 am 24. DaveP.:

The rules were changed for the last President… for eight years under GWB, the POTUS could have no expectation of a private life, nor of private time with his family, nor even of common human respect and decency.

Now the same people who changed the rules and made the Oval Office into a fishbowl want the rules changed back, so one of theirs can have an easier time of it.

No. the rules are as played, seasons 2001-2008. Live with it.

Oct 30, 2009 - 7:31 am 25. jon:

I don’t think the rules are any different, it’s just that a new group of people is complaining about who’s not doing his job and who’s afraid to deal with the real issue and so forth. Bush liked going to his Crawford property, Obama likes going new places, and both receive a lot of scrutiny from the media and everyone else who bothers to notice such things.

The rules aren’t being changed or even asked to be changed, since Obama knew and knows what comes with the job. What Obama, and Bush before him, and Sarah Palin and Balloon Boy and Gisele Bundchen and Martina Navratilova and McCain’s daughter and Patrick Stewart and probably even Harry Dean Stanton have is just a regular case of Celebrity Regret. That’s the thing best summed up by Thelonious Monk when he said, “I’m famous, ain’t that a bitch?”

Oct 30, 2009 - 7:57 am 26. zipity:

Sure Michelle doesn’t get “paid” but she does, of course, have a staff of 26 and a budget of $1.75 million dollars….nice work if you can get it. It’s almost as good as her hospital job she used to have, the salary for which mysteriously doubled after her husband became a Senator..and said Senator steered a several million dollar earmark toward same hospital….

Oct 30, 2009 - 5:05 pm 27. porkopolitan:

It’s not the date night, it’s the date venue. How many tens of thousands does it take to back AF1 out of the hangar? Probably more than I take home in three years. I don’t begrudge Barry & Mish a night on the town, so long as they cough up reimbursement for the voluntarily assumed expenses to travel beyond their current city limits. (Though that might violate rule 1b of the Democratic Handbook: “Make someone else pay for it.”) Wanna see the traveling company of the “Cats” revival when it rolls into the Kennedy Center, though? Knock yourselves out.

As for Alsadius’ entirely reasonable point about staying sane, that’s what a weekend at Camp David or a few weeks’ R&R at whatever replaces the Crawford Ranch are about. A Presidential date night cannot be R&R — not with an augmented White House press corps in tow. But we are required to pretend that Barack And Michelle On Parade is really all about quality time with the spouse. Please. Even the backwoods rubes won’t fork over a nickel for that one…

Nov 2, 2009 - 12:20 pm

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