Criticism Growing of FLOTUS Michelle Obama’s Posh “Spoiled Uptown Girl” Spain Vacation… As if That Were Possible (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on August 9, 2010
Eye of the beholder: Criticism of Michelle Obama's Spain ill-timed, lavish vacation grows... she stayed at the 5-star Hotel Villa Padierna: this is the indoor pool in the hotel's spa, overlooking lush gardens - while millions of Americans are struggling to keep their homes and find jobs
Even leftist Obama cheerleader/journalist Maureen Dowd has criticized Michelle “Let Them Eat Lobster” Obama for her extravagant trip to Spain while millions of American families are struggling to keep their homes and millions are still unemployed.
CBS Evening News, with another leftist Obama cheerleader/journalist, Katie Couric, expressed some disapproval at the spendthrift First Lady last week as well.
Has Hades frozen over?
From Maureen Dowd, New York Times, Feliz Cumpleaños, and Adiós:
In politics and pop culture, optics are all. And Michelle’s optics sent a message that likely made some in the White House and the Democratic Party wince.
She seemed to be gigging at her husband a bit: I’m going to do what I want to do. I can’t worry about whether it gives the Tea Partiers ammo or makes Democrats (including you) campaigning against the excesses of the rich look hypocritical. Even if the country is sliding into a double-dip recession, I’m going abroad to a five-star hotel on Air Force Two and give a boost to another country’s economy.
To defray possible criticism of their upcoming 10-day trip to Martha’s Vineyard, Michelle belatedly agreed to a weekend family vacation on Florida’s gulf coast. On Friday, Spanish police closed a public beach for the American entourage. If Michelle had wanted a closed beach, she could have headed to our gulf sooner. There are plenty of multi-star hotels there, and she and the girls could have cleaned a few pelicans.
Certainly, as Obama adviser David Axelrod says, “not everything is political theater.” The Obamas shouldn’t have to poll, as the Clintons did, to figure out where to go on vacation.
“Folks in the public eye are also human beings,” Axelrod told me. “If you have the ability to show your kid a part of the world and you can do that together before they get to the age where they don’t want to do anything with you, I don’t think it’s right that you have to defer it because of the politics.”
But as Michelle and friends frolicked in the land of flamenco, the birthday boy got few gifts from the news.
More Democratic candidates shied away from appearing with him. The latest disappointing jobs report prompted evening news reports about Americans’ fears of falling into what one called “the abyss.” And a CNN poll showed that a quarter of Americans still doubt the president was even born here.
The job of first lady, tightly constrained by convention, is hard for modern women. Michelle is a gutsy Harvard Law School grad who started as her husband’s mentor. Any coloring outside the lines can cause problems, as Nancy Reagan and Hillary Clinton learned when lampooned as Marie Antoinettes.
And now, other journalists are questioning what American taxpayers are footing to pay the salaries of Michelle-O’s enormous personal staff.
Varney & Co.: Criticism Mounts Over First Lady’s Spain Trip
Geraldo Rivera, a big fan of FLOTUS, expressed his displeasure about Michelle Obama’s expensive trip to Spain, as did Democrat strategist Kirsten Powers and Republican strategist Noelle Nikpour.
Geraldo on Michelle Obama’s Lavish Trip to Spain with Noelle Nikpour and Kirsten Powers: “Politically Tone Deaf”
FOX News: First Lady Takes 40 Friends on Pricey Vacation
From Mary Kate Cary, US News & World Report, Instead of Spain, Michelle Obama Should Stick to U.S. Vacations:
There’s a lot of talk about Michelle and Sasha Obama’s mother-daughter trip with 40 friends to a ritzy resort on the coast of Spain, and some of the commentary is a little harsh. Andrea Tantaros of the New York Daily News calls the first lady a “material girl” and a “modern-day Marie Antoinette”–but she also brings up a valid point about the cost to taxpayers of taking an estimated 70 Secret Service agents and Air Force Two on an overseas vacation. Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post writes that the attacks are unfair and that it’s not reasonable to expect the first family to have a “stay-cation” in Washington, cleaning out closets at the White House.
Maureen Dowd’s column on this in the Sunday New York Times quotes Obama adviser David Axelrod saying that “not everything is political theater.” Axelrod continued, “Folks in the public eye are also human beings … If you have the ability to show your kid a part of the world and you can do that together before they get to the age where they don’t want to do anything with you, I don’t think it’s right that you have to defer it because of the politics.”
He makes a good point, and I’m a big fan of foreign travel for kids. I’m also all for mother-daughter trips together. But surely the Obamas have enough foreign travel coming up–to places other than five-star resorts–where the girls can see how people from other nations live and what it’s like for kids who aren’t as blessed as they are. The president’s canceled trip to Asia hasn’t been rescheduled yet, but why not take the girls along, even if they have to miss some school? The only time I ever got to travel to a far-off place when I was a kid was when I accompanied my dad on a business trip. I suspect kids who can do that learn a lot more than they would have in the classroom.
Part of the problem with the trip to Spain is that Mrs. Obama was photographed wearing clothes by Jean Paul Gaultier, an expensive haute-couture French designer. Glamour magazine’s coverage (with photos) calls her “an ambassador of total glam when she travels.” Of course we all want the first lady to look great, but choosing way-out-there expensive designers like Gaultier might be feeding the narrative that there’s a disconnect between the White House and the rest of the country. I think Mrs. Obama does a great thing when she chooses up-and-coming American designers–as she did when she asked Jason Wu to do her inaugural gown–or when she mixes edgy American designs with J. Crew standards.
If I were first lady, I’d have two rules: When out in public, I’d only wear clothes by American designers, and when on vacation, I’d only go to towns inside the United States.
Hilarious must-read at
Ace of Spades HQ: Michelle Obama’s Camp: I Was Forced To Endure Soul-Wrenching Luxury and Heart-Breaking Excess Because I Had To Honor My Friend’s Dead Father
Video Montage: Michelle Obama thinks she is not entitled to her vacations in Spain, Hawaii, Martha’s Vineyard…
From Jeannie DeAngelis, American Thinker, Presidential Poor Choices:
Michelle having made what most would agree to be the wrong choice about where to be on her husband’s 49th birthday seems to be a family trait. Maybe the First Lady was merely emulating a pattern Barack has repeatedly set forth as precedent: Never be where you should be. Exercise iconoclast attitudes and stun the world by doing the inappropriate
Take for instance the Spain-over-birthday attitude the President exhibited by observing a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House in lieu of attending Ground Zero ceremonies in New York City on September 11, 2009, choosing to send Joe Biden in his stead.
Didn’t Barack Obama also spend free time vacationing, golfing, going to baseball games and entertaining a Beatle instead of addressing the crisis of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico? A few days after the Deepwater Horizon oilrig explosion, instead of meeting with BP executives, Obama chose to eat barbeque with Michelle in Ashville, NC.
Obama campaigned for Senate Majority leader Harry Reid in Las Vegas, not far from a southern border state under siege. The President, who flew to Copenhagen to pick up an unearned Nobel Peace Prize, chose to prosecute Arizona even before personally assessing the illegal war on the border Arizonans struggle against daily.
Suddenly Michelle’s ill-timed trip to Marbella pales in comparison.
Lest we forget the discomfiting reaction Americans had when Barry flew home to Chicago for much needed R&R on Memorial Day, deciding to forgo traditional Arlington Cemetery commemoration ceremonies.
From JustOneMinute, Michelle Antoinette, or, Nobody Expects The Spanish Vacation:
We have a President with a long problem establishing that he is in touch with those middle Americans bitterly clinging to their guns, their religion, their hopes for a better job, and so on. Now Michelle is jet-setting in five-star hotels while Democrats strategize on getting their message out.
Additional:
Legal Insurrection: Yeah, But Laura Bush Went On An African Safari
Diary of a Mad Conservative: Michelle’s glitzy Spanish vacation
Frugal Café Blog Zone: Leftist Media: Michelle Obama’s “Marie Antoinette” Spain Vacation vs. Nancy Reagan & Laura Bush Replacing Old, Chipped White House China and Unemployment Bad, More Jobs Shed… More Backlash on Michelle Obama’s Lavish Vacation — Public Beach Closed for Her by Police, Ingraham’s Parody of FLOTUS Vacation Diary and Yes, She’s Our “Uptown Girl”… Michelle Obama’s Ridiculously Lavish Vacation in Spain (video) and More Bleak “Hopenchange”… Record-Breaking: More Than 780,000 Families in Illinois Receiving Food Stamps and Obama & Reid, Two of a Kind: Responsible for Nevada’s Broken, Decimated Economy, Highest Rate of Home Foreclosures in Nation, Angle Slams Reid (video) and Bad News: Police Layoffs of Up to 30 Percent for East St. Louis… Blame It on Obama’s Terrible Economy and “Skin in the Game” Barack-Style– First Family’s Dog Bo Flies to Obamas’ Maine Vacation on a Separate Jet
Instapundit: Michelle’s “Excellent Adventure”: Another sign Obama doesn’t really want to be President
Power Line: Michelle Antoinette?
Camp of the Saints: Rally ‘Round The Flag: Message From A Friend and The Pablum Puke Of The Day
Gateway Pundit: Oh Brother… Media Tries to Rescue Michelle O From Spanish Escapade; Insists She Was Mourning With a Friend and As Michelle Returns From Spanish Extravaganza Obama Cuts Food Stamps to Nation’s Poor and Krauthammer on Michelle O: A vacation to Spain Is a “Bad Idea for a First Lady Who Literally Tells Us to Eat Our Spinach” (Video) and Worst. Jobs. President. Ever… July Unemployment Rate Remains at 9.5% and Michelle And Sasha’s Excellent Spanish Adventure…At Taxpayers Expense! and First Lady’s Most Excellent Spanish Adventure Will Cost US Taxpayers Over $200,000 and IT’S OFFICIAL: Barack Obama Is Worst Jobs President Since Great Depression and After US Economy Loses Another 125,000 Jobs Obama Says: “We’re Heading in the Right Direction” (Video) and Custard Store Owner: Biden Went Off On Me, I Was Shocked and Biden Admits Obama Administration Won’t Be Able to Create Lost Jobs and Private Sector Lost Nearly 10 Million Jobs in Last 3 Years – Public Sector Gained 720,000 and Rep Paul Ryan: By Every Objective Measure The Stimulus Has Failed (Video)
Nice Deb: Monday Menagerie and Michelle et al’s Excellent Adventure In Spain
Pundit & Pundette: It’s easy being queen
Michelle Malkin: Unemployment at 9.5%; another Obama econ adviser bails; Mrs. Obama hits the beach
Mail Online: ‘Michelle Obama is a modern-day Marie Antoinette’: First Lady slammed for lavish Marbella holiday
Is This Blog On?: Same As It Ever Was
Blue Crab Boulevard: Marie Obama
Motor City Times: Freep Op-Ed Advocates Higher Energy Costs For Everyone Except Low Income Households
Ace of Spades HQ: Obama Two Points Higher Than 39%
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