The American Spectator

Oldefarte| 5.31.09 @ 11:55AM

This spending the taxpayers' money is despicable. I don't recall any prior occasion where a president has taken such a pleasurable [and no official business included] trip on our dime. Talk about SHARING THE WEALTH!!!!!

Daisy| 5.31.09 @ 12:45PM

Obama's one million dollar date. He must think he won the lottery last November. We sure didn't.

Eliza| 5.31.09 @ 12:48PM

That's $1,000,000.00-- folks.

gimmeabreak| 5.31.09 @ 12:57PM

How many vacations did Bush take during the 8 years he was doing his "job"? I think the Obamas can be allowed one Saturday night out. Get a grip. And if this is "news," I'm through reading this website.

Byron| 5.31.09 @ 1:05PM

As a conservative (old sense, not neocon) Republican, I voted for Obama and contributed to his campaign (first Democrat since 1964). But now again I get this liberal elitism -- Green for everyone except Obama. But will the Republicans ever get their true values back and give up big government conservatism, idealistic foreign policy, and the desire to make us all better people through the federal government? Where can one turn now that Goldwater, Buckley, Friedman, Bozell, Meyers et al. are gone?

Donald Brown| 5.31.09 @ 1:12PM

I must disagree with the notion that this new president is spending our money frivolously on pleasure. Review your history. How often did Pres. Bush fly Air Force One to Crawford (over 65 trips during his two terms not to mention trips to Maine and winner of most days out of office). I believe he spent less time in Washington than in Crawford during his first year in office. Or Pres. Clinton's trips to Martha's Vineyard to or sun in St. Thomas. Or Pres. Reagan, currently number two among presidents taking the most vacations.--- TALK ABOUT A SIMPLETON TAKING A PURELY PARTISAN VIEW!!!! Stop the partisan sniping and let's deal with the real problems!!!!

Smitty| 5.31.09 @ 2:01PM

A vacation is one thing but a one night $1,000,000.00 date is disgusting. He's been in office FOUR months, he hasn't earned a vacation! What about HOPE AND CHANGE, folks? We've got a low-class elitist Alinskyite who wouldn't know class if it bit him on the a$$. Man of the people; what a sick joke.

Liza| 5.31.09 @ 2:04PM

Tell Obama to stop his partisan sniping by blaming everything on President Bush and we'll stop ours, clown.

Oldefarte| 5.31.09 @ 2:21PM

Donald Brown: Bush was using Air Force I to fly HOME [to Crawford]---get it? That's understandable [what do you want him to do-walk to Crawford from DC?] Does Obama live in New York City? [last I heard, he was from Chicago; supposedly he still owns a house there]Now who is the SIMPLETON, idiot?

Robyn| 5.31.09 @ 2:38PM

No Simpelton here, Mr. Brown! Mr. Embry correctly drives home the point that Obama always (always!!) says one thing and then does another; worse yet, he tells US to do one thing and HE does another!!! I'm sure in the midst of our economic crisis, there were wonderful shows, etc., within 5, even 10, miles of the White House .

javajolt| 5.31.09 @ 2:39PM

if this had been El Diablo bush he would have taken that 747-400 costing 3-4 times what a Gulfstream G550 costs. So last nights date for the Obamas was cheap compared to if it had been El Diablo bush.

javajolt| 5.31.09 @ 2:51PM

just to clear things up...bush did NOT fly Air Force 1 back to Texas. He flew AF26000 Heavy.

Only the President has the call sign Air Force 1 and bush did not carry that title any longer...Thank God!

Mike Lee| 5.31.09 @ 3:33PM

Just because the lefty Bush bashers were all scolds doesn't mean we should be. Jimmy Carter took heat for locking himself in the White House during the Iranian hostage crisis. If were going to criticize him lets just keep it to his policies and not this non issue. Someone has to be the adults. Lets let it be us conservatives.

Robyn| 5.31.09 @ 4:27PM

This isn't about politics, Mr. Lee. It's about how nobody holds Obama accountable for his innumerable hypocrisies; the media are too subsumed in their adulation of the president. Hypocrisy is never a non-issue.

ds80| 5.31.09 @ 4:38PM

Amen, Robyn.

I will give the noob (Obama) the benefit of the doubt though: ... because he hasn't a clue what leadership in time of crisis means.

gimmeabreak, D. Brown, javajolt ... would rather focus on past history (Bush), while whistling to Nero's (Obama's) tunes as Rome (America) burns.

Scarlett| 5.31.09 @ 4:53PM

By any standard--a $1,000,000.00 date is ridiculous. Who is he, Emperor Obama? Compare the outrageous expense of his 'date' to the no-class IPod gift he gave to the Queen of England. What a rube.

Roscoe| 5.31.09 @ 7:38PM

gimmeabreak, donald brown et al... amazing. You pair would make perfect shills for the current pack of dems... reflexive talking point: "it's all the previous administration's fault..."

Paul McGrath| 5.31.09 @ 9:05PM

This is bull, Asher. Everyone of us is entitled to a life, even the president. God, if I were him I'd do the same thing. Heck, I do the same thing now!

If you don't like his policies--and I don't like any of 'em--fine. But this is just sniping. Garbage. And you drag the conservative movement down with it.

Angel| 6.1.09 @ 12:35AM

What is really bull is Obama's pretense as the leader of the 'little people'. He's just another dime-store, garden-variety politician sucking at the teat of the American taxpayer, and I think Obama should be called out on it. I don't care if you trip the light fantastic every night of the week, Mr. McGrath--just as long as I don't have to pay for your frivolities.

Charlene| 6.1.09 @ 8:25AM

gimmeabreak| 5.31.09 @ 12:57PM
How many vacations did Bush take during the 8 years he was doing his "job"?

So............Obama doing the same thing as Bush is the "change" then that we were promised by Obama? Obama doing the same thing as Bush is the "No more Washington as usual" that we were promised by Obama? Resorting to "Well, Bush did it" when Obama is doing the same is your arguement to defend Obama for raping the taxpayers? No, gimMEabreak!

ds80| 6.1.09 @ 8:48AM

Hey! Members of the Boy President Fan Club!
We gotcha pegged:

The outrage of the Left (gimmeabreak, D. Brown, javajolt, McGrath, ... the list grows) over criticism of their Idol (in this case, outrage at a poem - a *poem*, mind you - which mildly poked fun) is their way of wishing we'd all just "look the other way".

No Emperor to see here.
Move along.
Ignore that teleprompter behind the curtain.

Tim| 6.1.09 @ 9:45AM

Yes, but this time there was no buzzing of Liberty Island. Thank you Mr. President.

Grzmlyk| 6.1.09 @ 10:40AM

Yeah, pay no attention to the taxpayer funded date night in NYC - disrupting traffic and people's lives in the most densely-populated city in America; pay no attention to Obama "ordering out" frequently from restaurants around the country whose culinary delights he and Her Royal Highness have a hankering for; pay no attention to the weekly cocktail parties where guests are feted with Kobe beef; pay no attention to the fact that he won't send his kids to the public schools he's forcing other DC kids to go to; pay no attention to Queen Michelle's $540 sneakers; pay no attention to Her Majesty's public luxuriating in having a staff to cater to her every whim; pay no attention to the fact that Obama resorted to sleazy fiscal sleight of hand to get his residence in Chicago. Pay no attention that, while she was merely a princess, Michelle had a sinecure at the University of Chicago hospital to the tune of $300,000 - where her only job was to figure out palatable wording for the hospital's practice of turning away poor people who couldn't pay.

Everyone knows politicians living large at the expense of the taxpayer is only bad when Republicans do it.

Besides, by the time the Big O's first year is up, all of this will look like chump change. The Royal Couple will no doubt have Buckingham Palace flown over and reconstructed brick-by-brick ont he grounds of Camp David; after all, hired help like Queen Elizabeth can do with a Motel 6.

I'm just waiting for Obama to order that the corpses of erstwhile Republican rivals to be bundled together and used as cobblestones leading from the Oval Office to the Marine One landing pad.

We wouldn't want this "man of the people" to soil his Royal tootsies on earthly pavement, would we?

As for those supposed conservatives that keep shouting for us to be nice and kind and "adults," how did that McCain inauguration work out for you? I love your slogan: Victory through Surrender!

conman| 6.1.09 @ 11:10AM

Grzmlyk: I can't decide if you need to take more meds or get off them completely. Don't you wish you were half as clever as you attempt to be.

ds80| 6.1.09 @ 1:50PM

No 'conman', Grzmlyk is exactly as clever as you discern him to be. Very witty, in fact, and very entertaining. It's apparent is that you're just objecting to the object of his skewering: the Accidental President.

Poor baby.

Scarlett| 6.1.09 @ 2:51PM

Grzmlyk, good job--you made one liberal reach for his/her meds. The fool is probably 'self-medicating', too!

Marge| 6.2.09 @ 9:31AM

oldefarte must be senile...bush took more trips more vacation time and STAYED away from his official duties in the white house than three previous presidents. And you have the nerve to complain. But then typical republican, I can do it, but don't anybody else dare, I say dare do it.

Missy| 6.2.09 @ 4:02PM

Yeah, thanks, Marge--double dog dare Obama to spend our money recklessly. Typical hog at the trough liberal.

DrEvil| 6.3.09 @ 10:30AM

I read that the exact same play was playing in Washington on the exact same night. The President could have taken a limousine ride to see the exact same play, but he promised the wife a Broadway way show so that takes precedence over the idea that everyone needs to cut back and be fiscally responsible.

Presidents Bush, Reagan, Clinton may have spent plenty of time away from the White House but no President is ever really on vacation or off the clock; it is a 24 hour day job regardless of the President's location. Demonstrate one instance where any of them ran up an expense comparable to this on a way day indulgence.

The President's NYC trip was self-indulgent and a waste of tax payer money. There is no other honest way to describe it. The President needs to travel in his official duties and is entitled to travel outside of those duties. The expenses related to the trtavel are the responsibility of the Government but this was way over the line. If President Bush did the exact same thing the leftists would have condemned him and the fiscally responsible conservatives would have condemned him as well.

President Obama was wrong in this instance.

Have an Evil day

Have an Evil day

John McFadden| 6.6.09 @ 7:53AM

I am a conservative. But this storyis ridiculous. If George W. and Laura Bush went to see a Broadway show, all conservatives would say, "A man needs a break once in a while." But when Democrats do it, they are elitists. We should just admit that we are ALL hypocrites.

Violette| 6.7.09 @ 12:03AM

George and Laura Bush had too much class to pull a stunt like this; especially in the middle of a severe recession. I thought everyone 'has to sacrifice'--well, at least some of us do.

"Let them eat cake."

Tone Deaf Trailer trash.

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download| 11.7.10 @ 9:35AM

I think the Obamas can be allowed one Saturday night out