Saturday, August 7, 2010

Let Them Eat Paella


About a year ago I was in Spain and France on my vacation.  Since that time 12 months ago, I haven't taken any time off from my job for a holiday. Fortunately, I will be taking a short, yet much needed, 6 day vacation at the end of August.

Now can we talk about our First Lady and her vacation in Spain.   Don't get me wrong, she has a demanding job and I don't begrudge her taking time off with her friends and family.  What I do mind is that by the end of the summer, not only will she have taken 8 vacations, and the cost of taking her entourage, including her security detail and personal staff, some 50 people, to Marbella, will have been a couple of hundred thousand dollars...at least.

Couldn't that money have been spent  in the United States?  Big Sur, Santa Barbara, Malibu, Monarch Beach, La Jolla... these are just a few gorgeous locations in California where she could have taken some time off with her girls and her gal pals.

If she required a beautiful beach what about Hawaii or Hilton Head?

In a period of gazillions in US debt, and 22% real unemployment, this is what writer Roger Simon had to say about it
Michelle’s $375,000 Spanish vacation — with the Daily Mail dubbing her a “modern-day Marie Antoinette” — is further proof of my thesis. What man who wanted to be re-elected (or see his party do well in November) would let his wife go off on such an “excellent adventure” in these economic times? Of course no one denies the right of people to have vacations – I’m coming to the end of one myself on my beloved Bainbridge Island — but closing Mediterranean beaches while booking 60-plus rooms in a five star Marbella hotel for her entourage? It is beyond tone deaf, perhaps to the level of subconscious (or even deliberate) self-sabotage.
At the very least, something most peculiar is going on. The first lady goes off on a jaunt worthy of 18th Century aristocracy at the very moment of her husband’s birthday. Is somebody trying to tell us something?

It seems to be a strange political decision from the Obamas who are so politically savvy.