Boy It's FUN To Be President!

President Obama was elected almost two years ago. He has been in office for 19 months. He has a lot on his agenda--wars in Afghanistan, where American deaths are sky-rocketing, and in Iraq, where we're trying to disengage while averting disaster. He also has an ongoing recession which, we've been told ad nauseum, is the "worst since the Great Depression." I won't go into what Ronald Reagan inherited--21% prime rate, stagnation, etc., but that is definitely fodder for another post.
On Obama's watch, we also had the catastrophic Deep Horizon oil spill, a disaster he didn't focus on for almost eight weeks, and then only because his poll numbers were plummeting. We've had soldiers captured and held by the enemy--one for almost a year now. We've had unemployment go up from an average under George Bush of 5.2% to over 10%. (It is down to about 9.5% now, mainly, according to most economists, due to the fact that many people have stopped looking for work.) This despite the fact that we were promised that if the huge, almost $1 trillion "stimulus" passed, unemployment wouldn't exceed 8%. Many experts believe when those people are taken into account, as well as those who have taken minimum wage jobs just to get a paycheck, the real unemployment rate is close to 20%! Home foreclosures are happening in record numbers, banks are failing by the hundreds, homelessness is on the rise, several states are on the verge of bankruptcy, there is an economic crisis unfolding in Europe as several nations fall under their crushing debt burdens (a fate which awaits this great country if we don't get our fiscal house in order), and, on the security front, we've had several attacks and attempted attacks on our own soil by terrorists, China has tested anti-satellite weapons and perpetrated several hacking attacks to test our defenses. There are many more problems we need to address as a nation, and a president is supposed to be the executive who organizes all the responses. That's why he has a cabinet and literally hundreds of thousands of federal employees at his beck and call--to handle problems, to organize solutions, and to make life better for the American people.
With all these problems, I have a problem with what's been going on. President Obama, since his inauguration, has played in excess of 40 rounds of golf, over 8 just since the oil rig disaster.
Each time, of course, the president is taken there either by helicopter or in a multi-car motorcade--all at taxpayer expense. (George Bush played 24 rounds in eight years and was accused by the left wing press of being out of touch with the American people. Of course, Obama gets a pass). He has taken countless vacations (at least three since Deepwater alone). He has urged people to vacation in the Gulf, then taken his family to exclusive Bar Harbor, Maine for their vacation. He has vacationed in Hawaii in a house costing $35,000 per week. His wife is on the way to Spain shortly, where she has reserved 30 rooms at a 5-star hotel to house her entourage. He has had numerous parties at the White House, including a recent feting with Paul McCartney and a Tony awards show. In short, the man who purports to be Everyman truly seems to want to vacation and dine everywhere but where the common man goes. When Obama first became president, remember how he told the people how wonderful the cheeseburgers were on Air Force One? Remember how he flew on Air Force One to New York for a dinner date with Michelle at a posh restaurant? Can you count how many times he's gone out to restaurants in the DC area where the price of one dinner is equivalent to many people's salary for a week? All of this is funded by taxpayers--the same taxpayers who are losing their jobs by the millions; the same taxpayers whose taxes are about to skyrocket with the expiration of the tax cuts put through by George Bush.
The point is that this president seems more intent on partying his way through his presidency than being serious about it. Perhaps that is due to the fact that he is still very young (he turns only 49 on August 4th), and his reckless days of partying and cocaine consumption aren't that far behind him. (Hey, he admitted this in his own book!) His administration isn't much better.
I mean, water gun fights between the Chief of Staff and the Vice-President? Please! At any rate, watching this man govern makes me wish I could be elected, because boy, it sure looks fun to be the president!