It's NOT A Vacation

[babylonsister]

Posted in its entirety with permission.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2011_03/028534.php

IT'S NOT A VACATION.... The good news is, the right has stopped obsessing over President Obama picking his favorites in the NCAA tournament. The bad news is, conservatives have moved onto something nearly as silly.

President Obama landed in Brazil Saturday to learn about its booming economy, but conservatives called the trip a distraction from worldwide turmoil. <...>

"What is happening with the President while all of this is going on in the United States and around the world? He's going on vacation. He's going to Rio," charged Steve Doocy, cohost of "Fox & Friends," during Friday's broadcast.

And The Washington Times fired off an editorial last week that declared "the President parties while the world burns."

By some measures, those were some of the milder criticisms. Fox News' Eric Bolling threw an on-air tantrum Friday night, insisting the president and his wife have been "spreading suntan lotion on each other" and "sipping caipirinhas on Air Force One -- our Air Force One -- while Rome burns."

This may be hard for conservatives to understand -- when they think "Brazil," they think "Carnival" -- but Latin America has many quickly growing economies, and Obama is visiting the region to promote trade and open markets. The point is to take steps that will strengthen the U.S. economy, which the right should at least pretend to care about.

What's more, the visit was scheduled months ago. It's not as if the president woke up Friday morning and thought, "Fire up Air Force One; I'm in the mood to see Rio."

I can appreciate why the timing of the trip may seem inconvenient, but the logistics of presidential travel abroad are laborious, and canceling would have proven problematic. Besides, there's always weighty issues on a president's to-do list, and if the White House had pushed off the Latin American visits until later in the year, there'd very likely be important developments going on then, too.

What we're seeing from the right, then, is criticism for the sake of criticism. The discourse has reached the point at which Republicans and their media figures have to be whining about something at all times. Obama is stopping in Chile, Brazil, and El Salvador as part of a broader economic agenda, so the right feels the need to pretend to be outraged.

It's quite sad.

—Steve Benen

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Tell it to the usual kvetchers at DU

who seem to be getting their marching orders from Sean Hannity these days.

[SpiralHawk]

2. SuckerPuppets (R) are a fact of life

If the money is good, the propaganda is pervasive.

[babylonsister]

3. Yes, I've read some of the gripes here; amazing how similar

they are to faux. :think:

[Cirque du So-What]

4. The entire RW blogosphere is abuzz with the 'Obama's on vacation in Brazil' meme

and thanks a pantload to those who agree with them and attempt to foist that meme upon the whole of DU.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Why the HELL would they be spreading suntan lotion on each other?

Is the new meme 'he's not really black!!'?

[babylonsister]

6. Black people get sunburned, too, but that's kinda not the

point. :)

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. Yes and they use sunSCREEN, not suntan lotion.

[babylonsister]

11. Gotcha. If you're lathering up, I always think it's to

get some protection from the sun. One and the same to me.

[TheBigotBasher]

10. Lol. Larry Johnson

has already claimed that.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/07/30/759612/-WTF-Meet-the-Mega-Birfer

[drm604]

13. That makes no sense.

That birth certificate is for a female baby named Susan Elizabeth Nordyke. What does that have to do with the President? :shrug:

[Politicalboi]

16. That Certificate is a

Live Birth Certificate. It's what they have been hounding for all this time.

[drm604]

17. The Dailykos article seems to say that Johnson claims that it proves that the President is white.

How could it possibly do that? The link to Johnson's article doesn't work so I don't know what his argument is but I assume it's nutty.

[rpannier]

8. They've confused Obama with the former REPUBLICAN governor of South Carolina

Sanford.
He'd be hopping in Air Force One to sip Pina Colatas with prostitutes and then go 'hiking in the mountains'

[Lefta Dissenter]

9. thanks for posting that (n/t)

:hi:

[starroute]

12. They'd love to turn Obama into Jimmy Carter

I'm having trouble finding anything about it online, but my recollection is that during the Iran hostage crisis Carter refused to leave Washington and stuck by this even as the crisis dragged on for over a year -- thus both making himself a prisoner of the White House and significantly crippling his reelection campaign.

I did find a posting at one of the right-wing sites from during the Gulf oil crisis last year saying that Carter showed a proper sense of seriousness and that Obama should do the same -- which suggests to me that they would like nothing more than to handicap Obama the same way.

The GOP may not know much, but they sure know messaging. They hate it when Obama goes abroad, looks presidential, represents the country as a whole, and is enthusiastically received. They want nothing more than to be able to portray him as weak, ineffectual, the representative only of special interests, and the proponent of an unpopular agenda.

[GoCubsGo]

14. Apparently, those imbeciles are unaware that Carnival ended over a week ago.

It's the middle of Lent, you dumbasses. The party is over.

I can see how these xenophobic idiots can construe this as a "vacation", since they brought the girls along. Understandable, considering I doubt they have any concept of "educational travel", where you let your kids see how people in other parts of the world live.

[tanyev]

15. Was Steve wearing his firefighter costume when he said that?

[CakeGrrl]

18. "Criticism for the sake of criticism" Wow, where ELSE have I seen that?

It IS quite sad, Mr. Benen. I fully agree.

[former9thward]

19. Presidents are never on vacation.

I always thought it was cheap and juvenile when people criticized Bush for going on "vacation" and it is just as ridiculous to attack Obama for this. Wherever a president goes there is always a secure phone within reach to talk to anyone he needs to. The nuclear football containing our codes for our weapons is always within a short distance whether he is on a golf course or swimming in the ocean. The president receives a national security briefing every morning seven days a week no matter where he is at. I think they should take more vacations. Maybe they would not age as quickly.

[Travelman]

21. Exactly.

I said at the time that people were going to wind up eating those words when they were giving Bush shit about not being at the White House, and now that day has come. Right or wrong, this is a case of turnabout being fair play. That door got opened, and now it's going to be very hard to close it again, which means that Obama gets sucker-punched with this every time he goes somewhere other than from the Residence to the Oval Office. Take Michelle to dinner? Sucker-punch. Diplomatic mission to Brazil? "Why is he on vacation?!?!?!" Trip to the Gulf Coast while an oil well detonates a mile below the ocean surface? "He's out there playing in the surf!" What's more, they get to beat Obama over the head with the hypocrisy stick because he's using Air Force One to do this while at the same time telling everyone to conserve fuel and energy.

It's a guaranteed no-win situation. It was with Bush, and now it is with Obama. There's not going to be any escaping it now.

[jmowreader]

20. Oh boy...

Considering George W. Bush, the president they're trying to disown, took 77 vacations, I don't think they've got a fucking word to say about this. Even if Obama WAS on vacation, which he's not, they can't object.

I also seem to remember Georgie vacationed while New Orleans was being blown off the map.