Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on June 10, 2009

UPDATE: No scare tactics here, the nanny state is definitely coming… read this piece posted on October 5, 2009:

Tim Slagle, Big Government: EPA’s Next Priority: Meat Control?

What if Obama mandated 'Sweatin' to the Oldies with Richard Simmons'?

I have several “Sweatin’ to the Oldies with Richard Simmons” VHS tapes. I must admit, I’ve only worked out to them a few times (which explains volumes as to why I don’t own the DVDs). For decades, Simmons has been a dynamic, pop-cultural force, cheerleading the need for physical fitness, and as much as I respect what he does and the huge amount of weight he lost decades ago, I’m glad I’m not forced to work out to Simmons’ frenetic tapes.

But, that could change.

Barack Obama is considered by some to be a model of physical fitness. Politico has a great writeup on it today. Apparently, he and Michelle not only are up at the crack of dawn to work out and eat healthy (except his White House party martinis and burgers with Dijon mustard at Ray’s Hell Burgers), Pres. Obama is now “encouraging” America to be more like him to keep health costs down (wait just a minute… is this a pre-mandate for the upcoming ObamaCare plan? Be in shape, eat veggies, or no ObamaCare health coverage for you?).

I am all for being fit and eating correctly, but that is my choice. It’s your choice. Not Obama’s choice nor mandate. To have the government levy “sin taxes” and perhaps enforce what we can and cannot eat… is that too uncomfortably much like the government staring over your shoulder and into your home per Orwell’s 1984 for anybody here? It should make you dang uncomfortable, because it flies into the face of all that our country was founded upon, the liberties presented in our Constitution. It’s not what America is all about.

It’s a “Big Daddy Obama is watching over you for your own good” ideology and it’s spelled M-A-R-X-I-S-M.

Or S-O-C-I-A-L-I-S-M.

No thanks, Big Daddy Obama. Scram. I can decide for myself without your help.

Snippet from Politico, Barack Obama says shape up now:

President Barack Obama eats his vegetables and exercises every day — and he really wants you to do the same.

From the White House garden to his picks for top health jobs, Obama is telling America’s McDonald’s-loving, couch-dwelling, doctor-phobic populace that things are about to change.

Don’t be fooled by the presidential burger runs. Obama and Congress are moving across several fronts to give government a central role in making America healthier — raising expectations among public health experts of a new era of activism unlike any before.

…The president is filling top posts at Health and Human Services with officials who, in their previous jobs, outlawed trans fats, banned public smoking or required restaurants to provide a calorie count with that slice of banana cream pie.

Even Congress is getting into the act, giving serious consideration to taxing sugary drinks and alcohol to help pay for the overhaul.

White House and medical people agree, Obama has the right idea for America, telling them how to live their lives better. “Barack and Michelle Obama sweat through a morning workout before most Americans step out of bed. They receive almost as much attention for their toned bodies as they do for their policies…” No other president before him has been this pro-fitness before. And they are swept away with his vision to help Americans live better lives.

Oh, really?

Los Angeles Times: The (over)exercise of power
July 22, 2005

…Bush has an obsession with exercise that borders on the creepy.

Given the importance of his job, it is astonishing how much time Bush has to exercise. His full schedule is not publicly available. The few peeks we get at Bush’s daily routine usually come when some sort of disaster prods the White House Press Office to reveal what the president was doing “at the time.” Earlier this year, an airplane wandered into restricted Washington air space. Bush, we learned, was bicycling in Maryland. In 2001, a gunman fired shots at the White House. Bush was inside exercising. When planes struck the World Trade Center in 2001, Bush was reading to schoolchildren, but that morning he had gone for a long run with a reporter. Either this is a series of coincidences or Bush spends an enormous amount of time working out.

There’s no denying that the results are impressive. Bush can bench press 185 pounds five times, and, before a recent knee injury, he ran three miles at a 6-minute, 45-second pace. That’s better than I could manage when I played two sports in high school. And I wasn’t holding the most powerful office on Earth. Which is sort of my point: Does the leader of the free world need to attain that level of physical achievement?

Bush not only thinks so, he thinks it goes for the rest of us as well. In 2002, he initiated a national fitness campaign. The four-day kickoff festivities included the president leading 400 White House staffers on a three-mile run. As then-Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said: “When it comes to exercise, there are many people who just need that extra little nudge to go out there and do a little bit more exercise.”

Bush was “creepy” with his personal workout regime, but Obama isn’t?

I wonder what the reaction of the media would have been if George W. Bush had “suggested” ANYTHING about how Americans should exercise and eat, to be more like him.

I know I’m not the only one to see the blatant hypocrisy here. And I hope I’m not the only one who sees the Obama “Nanny State” taking another tentative step towards ruling Americans’ lives, to being messenger of the message and the enforcer. Exercise and food mandates are not far away unless America speaks up.

From Michelle Malkin:

Crikey. I was kidding yesterday when I joked about a food intake czar in the wake of Obama’s “Special Master of Compensation” appointment.

Now, it has come to pass. Introducing the Royal Captain of Calorie Consumption…

Obama, Americans don’t need you telling them how to eat, how to exercise, how to live their lives. We’ve done just fine, with free choice and free will, prior to you being annointed on January 20. And we’ll do just fine when you are no longer POTUS. Yes, people make mistakes, much like you and Congress have made grievous mistakes with billions of our tax money.

And you expect us to trust YOU to run OUR lives? Puleeeezzzzeee…

Are our “Dummy” signs on our backs crooked?

Related reading:
Michelle Malkin: Obamacare on the rocks?; Plus: All Barack Channel refuses diverse viewpoint and Bad medicine: Obamacare poster art, Round 3 and Video break: The Nanny Tax Rap
Big Hollywood: Health Nazis Target Movie Snacks
Hot Air: Ramirez on health-care “reform” and Dems retreating on healthcare and Video: ObamaCare an “Old Joke”; Update: Cost now $1.6 trillion and White House throws Kennedy under the bus? and Lieberman opposes public plan in ObamaCare and Quotes of the day
Track-A-’Crat: Warning: Stay Out Of Eating Range
The American Spectator: Obama Touts Safeway Health Program, But Dem Bill Would Kill It
Charles Winecoff, Big Hollywood: A-holes and Insects – or Mother Nature Doesn’t Care If You’re a Good Liberal
Doug Powers, Michelle Malkin: Town hall time for Obama and ‘the mob’
Debbie Schlussel: Dumb Food Police Lawsuit of the Day
Jeffrey Jena, Big Hollywood: Fat! It’s the New Smoking!
NEOAVATARA: Medicare: The Preamble to the Public Option and A Conservative Health Care Solution

Categories: Economy, Government, Health, Social and Political Climate
Tags: 1984, Barack Obama, exercise, food, George Orwell, George W. Bush, Health, Michelle Obama, Nanny State, Obama, Obama money, Orwell, political, politics, POTUS, president, Richard Simmons, sin tax, socialized health care, Sweatin' to the Oldies, vegetables