PrintFebruary 17, 2009
The Audacity of the Obamas
Who would have thought that a CEO position would be tiring? And not just any CEO but the President of the United States, the leader of the free world, the Commander in Chief and the Messiah.
Apparently Barack Obama had no idea that all of that hard work would actually be just that -- hard work. I suppose he thought the job of POTUS would be just as much fun as the two years he spent on the campaign trail. He must have been under the illusion that the citizens of this great country would swoon over his tax cheating choices for cabinet members and staff, and that the kool-aid buzz evident during the campaign would keep the media brainwashed for the four years of his term.
Unfortunately for Obama, the buzz is quickly wearing off. And apparently, he is realizing that because after just two weeks of living in America's most famous mansion, what did the Obamas do? They escaped the stress of the job and ran to a local public elementary school to read books with seven year olds. According to the report,
"'We were just tired of being in the White House,' the president candidly told the gleeful second-graders at Capital City Public Charter School.""'We got out! They let us out!' Mrs. Obama said as the kids and their teachers laughed."
I have to say, I'm not laughing. This was a cute concept in the movie Dave when Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver snuck out of the White House one night for some ice cream. But Kevin Kline wasn't actually the President (although he certainly acted more Presidential than Obama has exhibited over the past several weeks) and Dave was just a movie.
I find this scary. Great leaders do not say after just two weeks on the job that they are tired of being in their office. Great leaders do not complain and they certainly do not have wives that joke about being paroled from living in a mansion. When one student asked the Obamas what it was like to live in the White House, Michelle responded by,
"...delighting the kids with all the perks of life in America's most famous house: a florist, a bowling alley, a movie theater, even a special place where people make chocolate and candy.‘You should come visit,' she said."
Throughout the campaign, it was abundantly clear the Obamas were completely out of touch with Middle America. Now that they "won," they continue to exhibit arrogance beyond comprehension. Joking to these students who may very well be economically challenged that they "let" her leave her home where servants make her candy and she can bowl in her basement is one of the most callous and ignorant statements that Michelle has made to date.
Just after the Obama's field trip, France's President Sarkozy announced that he may not seek re-election because the job is too tiring. When asked to explain, he stated,
"Because my job is very difficult. It needs a lot of energy, a lot of strength to do it and I have put all my strength into doing it as well as possible."
Prior to his inauguration, it appeared that Obama was actually up to the task and ready to put all of his strength into doing as good a job as possible (limited as many of us expected that to be). Karl Rove wrote in an opinion published in the Wall Street Journal,
"Mr. Obama's tendency to work late into the night will also pose problems. Politico.com reports that the White House staff is ‘preparing for a return to long nights, heavy weekend shifts.' Requiring a senior staff that meets at 7:30 a.m. to work until 11 p.m. or 12 a.m. will quickly cause burnout and diminish the quality of advice and oversight.
Mr. Obama and his team are confident that they can keep the pace of a campaign going in the West Wing, which no one before them has done. That intoxicating idea will fade. The question is how they will deal with the challenges created by their organization of the West Wing's policy-making apparatus."
But my suspicion, based on Obama's behavior to date, is that Obama does not really plan on working hard at all -- he plans on delegating. And what could prove this hypothesis better than the way in which he delegated possibly the most important legislation of his administration to the devices of Nancy Pelosi. While Nancy and her money hungry colleagues toiled day and night adding more and more pork to the spending bill, the Obamas were taking a break from the rigors of just three weeks in the White House to vacation at Camp David.
"You can see that during the summer it's going to be a nice place to spend a lot of time. Hit a few golf balls. Played a little basketball."
And since Michelle has already announced to the country that Barack will require everyone to work hard, she was kind enough to recognize the work of the government employees that will be maintaining their vacation home by noting that,
"Some of the greatest adventures that we experience in life here in this nation, like family vacations, and camping, and hiking, and fishing, if you're blessed to have access to those resources, are possible because of the work that you do right here in [the Department of the Interior]... And Barack and I and the girls, as you may have read, just had a little retreat away. We visited Camp David for the first time, and got to experience the beautiful, the beauty of those grounds, and it was just wonderful to get a bit of a break and to spend some quality time as a family in nature."
I have no doubt that the employees at the Interior Department to whom Michelle was speaking were pleased to hear that the Obamas were able to "get a bit of a break" because they are "blessed to have access to those resources." I just wonder how pleased the citizens were to hear that in these trying times, when few can afford a family vacation, that the Obamas have already taken two at taxpayer expense.
Yes, a weekend at Camp David was not enough of a rest for the First Family. They required a weekend in Chicago in order to celebrate Valentine's Day this past weekend. It would seem that Michelle was not satisfied with the White House chef that she hand picked to cook for her for the next four years so after just a brief ride on Air Force One, the Ones found themselves snuggling in a corner booth at a swanky restaurant in their home town.
Under normal circumstances, I do not imagine that anyone would begrudge the Obamas a weekend in Chicago, but these are far from normal circumstances. According to the President, a failure to quickly pass his stimulus package would have resulted in catastrophe for the country. And Congress diligently obeyed the Messiah and passed the 1100 page bill without time to even read it. Hence, it must have been that Obama pulled a muscle in his signing hand while playing basketball the previous weekend at Camp David because wheels up on Air Force One occurred after the plan was passed by Congress but without the President's signature.
The Obama's have never truly experienced hard work despite their rhetoric requiring the citizens of the country to prepare themselves for years of it (someone has to earn a living and pay taxes so that the Obamas will be able to vacation at whim and elaborately celebrate superfluous holidays).
The extravagances that the Obamas have enjoyed in their first few weeks in office are turning into the bitter pill that the rest of the hard working Americans will have to swallow over the next four years. Americans are losing their jobs, being warned of impending catastrophe and the Obamas are acting like self-entitled royalty. They have yet to earn their position as First Family, let alone the perks that go along with it.
Get ready for the sequel to Obama's autobiography "The Audacity of Hope." At this rate it will be called "The Audacity of Laziness."
Lauri B. Regan is an attorney at a global law firm in New York
