Thursday, August 11, 2011

Just in Time, Another Obama Nine-Day Vacation

John Ransom
Just in Time, Another Obama Nine-Day Vacation


The last time the market was this spooked was when Mr. Obama decided to start a war with Libya. While on vacation.

At that time, the presidential family headed to Brazil where the HuffPo Entertainment section told us that the “First Family watched local performers during their tour of the Cidade de Deus Favela in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday. Sasha went sporty with sneakers, while the first lady showed her support of the country sartorially, in an outfit comprised of yellow, green and blue--the colors of the Brazilian flag. They later changed into pants to tour the Christ the Redeemer Statue at night.”

This vacation happened while the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was in full force, because Japan had been rocked by the tsunami of the century. Obama also chose the vacation to start serving up cruise missiles in Libya, a war he made his very own and that he still hasn’t won.

Libya for crying out loud. That’s like invading Wisconsin.

Here was the moment when the next Great Recession began.

We saw in that crisis the epitome of a failed presidency: the listless leadership, the lack of direction, the lack of pretension in being presidential (or even pretending to be), disregard for the consequences of policy. And the certainty that vacations would always come first.

And whatever was the purpose of the trip to Brazil, it was more of a junket than a business trip and Obama was rightly criticized for it.

Then there was that trip to Wiliamsburg that Obama cancelled because he had to, um, do that budget thing. He whined about that. A lot.

So, now comes word that after two of the worst weeks of stock market performance in the century, including a downgrade of America’s sterling credit, Obama is off to Martha’s Vineyard for nine days with the family, playing golf and doing whatever else you do on the seashore. On vacation.

I hope Obama remembers to bring a shovel and a bucket.

Yesterday the market dropped 519 points in the ninth-worst performance since 1899.Yes: 1899. Oh, yeah the sixth-worst was Monday, as in 2011.

Note to the president: It’s very helpful to the rest of us when the markets are healthy. It helps us keep our jobs.

So much for the Obama focus on “jobs.” I thought the president promised that he’d be all about jobs since the debt crisis he gave us was settled… er, negotiated? Um, fumbled? Or WTF’d.

Look, it’s obvious that the president doesn’t have a clue how jobs are created in this country. But would it be too much to ask him to understand how his own job works?

The president may run out of supporters soon and have only donors left.

Obama runs a real risk of someone from the Left taking him on. As our own Katie Pavlich wrote about it yesterday on the Tipsheet, some progressives are having buyer’s remorse over electing Obama.

That’s what happens sometimes when you go on vacation. You come back and someone else wants your job.

Even the donors are getting restless.

"I think he can shorten his vacation and focus on this issue," Peter Buttenwieser, a major Democratic donor who counts himself as an admirer of Obama told the LA Times. "If there were a real jobs summit and a jobs push I would feel much better. We're not paying enough attention to jobs."

Or at least not paying enough attention to one job.

Ahem.

No comments: