President Obama believes in global warming. (At least, in the speeches he gives and the policy he makes.) He thinks Americans should reduce their carbon footprint. He thinks we should drive electic cars. He thinks we should limit our travel.
Now - if you believe in man-made global warming, his advice, and the advice of environmentalists, may make sense to you, and you follow it. But at the same time you probably expect them to follow the advice that they give you, do you not?
So there's two camps of stupidity here.
Today, Tuesday, Sep 14, 2010, President Obama is going to make a quick jaunt to Pennsylvania to give his second annual Back to School speech. The speech will be recorded and broadcast to those schools that choose to accept it.
Now, he's taking a plane from Andrews Air Force Base, and he's returning to Andrews Air Force base, all on the same day. Indeed, all within three hours! He will be at the school to give a speech, and that's it. One hour max, then back on the plane!
There will be secret service with him on the flight, there will be secret service to meet him, as well as a motorcade, etc.
How much is all that going to cost, money-wise?
How much is all that going to cost, carbon-footprint wise?
And for what? A speech he could just have easily made from a school in Washingon! Or better still from his own office!
But no, he has to deliver this speech from the:
Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
So here's where the stupidity comes in.
President Obama doesn't practice what he preaches. It's okay for him to jaunt off in airplanes and gas-guzzling SUVs, just not okay for you. And since he doesn't practice what he preaches, surely environmentalists and people concerned with the US's state of indebtedness will think...."This guy is a liar and a hypocrite. I'm going to vote against him in the next election."
The second part of the stupidity is that - you'd think environmentalists and people concerned about debt would think that, but they don't. They think, "Oh, well, he's the President. He has to have those armored SUVs, and if he wants to take a flight to Pennsylvania today, and a flight to Detroit tomorrow....well, Bush was doing the same thing when he was President."
Perhaps so. But Bush wasn't governing a country that was demonstrably bankrupt, and Bush doesn't believe in man-made global warming.
The same can be said of all of President Obama's vacations to date. Whenever a Republican criticizes Obama for taking a vacation, his supporters are quick to point out, "At this same time in Bush's presidency, he had taken ten times as many vacations."
Which is true. But there's a difference. Again, when Bush was president, he wasn't presiding over a country that was close to bankruptcy. He wasn't presiding over a country that had swept him into power on the basis of statements of "I feel your pain" and "I'll put America back to work." And all of his vacations were at his own home, which had a "situation room" so that he could continue to work while he was on vacation.
Contrast that to President Obama, who has said he "feels our pain," yet continues to take vacation after vacation with his family, not to spots that could use a little tourist boost, like the coast of Florida (which he visited for a whole day!) but to rich places like Martha's Vineyard.
No one begrudges a President his "time off" - or at least they shouldn't. But where he spends his time off is our concern. Considering that the local economy of any vacation spot picks up when he's there - it was his responsibility to spend two weeks on the Gulf Coast of Florida, proving to scared tourists that yes, it was perfectly all right to go there and spend their tourist dollars.
Instead he went to Martha's Vineyward for two weeks, a place that has no economic doldrums from which to recover.
And there are still people who believe that President Obama "feels our pain."
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