Obama Cancels Big 60th Birthday Bash After COVID Backlash
Source: Daily Beast
Former President Barack Obama has canceled his big 60th birthday party after people questioned the wisdom of holding an event for hundreds of people during a resurgent pandemic.
Plans for the Saturday bash at his multimillion-dollar home on Martha’s Vineyard had been going on for months—but the spike in virus case numbers has forced a rethink.
“Due to the new spread of the Delta variant over the past week, the President and Mrs. Obama have decided to significantly scale back the event to include only family and close friends,” Hannah Hankins, an Obama spokeswoman, said early Wednesday. “He’s appreciative of others sending their birthday wishes from afar and looks forward to seeing people soon.
” Hundreds of ex-Obama administration officials, Democratic donors, and celebs including George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, and Oprah Winfrey were expected to attend. The White House defended the original plan earlier this week.
Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/obama-cancels-big-60th-birthday-bash-after-covid-backlash?ref=home
They linked to the original in the NYT this morning -
Annie Karni
By Annie Karni
Aug. 4, 2021Updated 5:24 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON — The party plans had been months in the making and many invitees had already arrived on Martha’s Vineyard when former President Barack Obama belatedly announced he was canceling his huge 60th birthday bash scheduled for Saturday. “Due to the new spread of the Delta variant over the past week, the President and Mrs. Obama have decided to significantly scale back the event to include only family and close friends,” Hannah Hankins, a spokeswoman for the former president, said in a statement Wednesday morning. “He’s appreciative of others sending their birthday wishes from afar and looks forward to seeing people soon.”
Hundreds of former Obama administration officials, celebrities and Democratic donors had been planning to attend the party at Mr. Obama’s island mansion. Many guests were already en route on the ferry and others were scheduling the required coronavirus tests whose results they had to submit to a medical “coronavirus coordinator” to gain entry to the Obama compound. The New York Post reported that George Clooney, Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey were all expected to attend.
“They’ve been concerned about the virus from the beginning, asking invited guests if they had been vaccinated, requesting that they get a test proximate to the event,” said David Axelrod, a former top Obama adviser. “But when this was planned, the situation was quite different. So they responded to the changing circumstances.”
Mr. Obama’s belated change of plans came days after President Biden effectively conceded that the pandemic had come roaring back, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an internal document that the Delta variant was much more contagious and more likely to break through vaccine protections than all other known versions of the virus.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/us/politics/obama-cancels-60th-birthday-party.html
Looks like a lot of this was also going to be a fundraiser too...
I missed this (right before the pandemic "publicly" hit) - https://vineyardgazette.com/news/2019/12/04/president-obama-buys-home-edgartown-great-pond
= new reply since forum marked as read
Maybe you are thinking about a different residence that they might have stayed at in the past?
This is apparently a very recent purchase (at the end of 2019) and definitely wouldn't have been $40,000, even if had been around back in 1978!
I do agree that they tend to do those "elitist" type characterizations of the attendees although those folks have always been at their events in the past while he was in office.
That fucking hurt so badly... at least I got to have a much better party this year while things were somewhat normal.
But yeah the stupid dipshits who aren't getting vaccinated because Fox News and that other guy told them to are ruining it for everybody. Damn them to hell. 
