In my 8/12 posting I noted that the Obamas were now vacationing on Martha's Vineyard and predicted that even though he has taken only about 1/4 of the vacation days at this point in his administration as George W. Bush had at the same point in his, that we would soon be treated to the annual snide faux outrage of the right wing over the travesty of our "goof off in chief" daring to take time off.
We did not have long to wait.
Sure as shootin' one of our local papers, whose editorial page spouts the same far right wing nonsense heard incessantly on FoxNews, reprinted commentary from a conservative site about Obama's vacation.
The site in question is called Canadian Free Press and is the playground of a Canadian journalist who apparently believes there is no free world without the United States so everyone should worship America. The post even refers to Obama as "our President" .
Basically Obama was compared to Nero who legend has it fiddled while Rome burned. The money quote is "Nero fiddled, Obama golfed."
It noted how Obama has played 133 rounds of golf during his Presidency and here he was at it again while the death toll in Afghanistan approaches 2,300 Americans. Obama is also blamed for the poor economic conditions in the U.S., the growing disparity between rich and poor, and worsening race relations in the country.
Apparently all of us hard-working Amerkans (you know, "white Americans" wink wink nudge nudge...) are invited to be suitably outraged that this uppity man in the White House dares take vacation and relax while there is any suffering anywhere.
So apparently it was alright for W to take over 300 vacation days (don't know how many rounds of golf and bike rides that included but we've seen the pix, we know it happened). Meanwhile the death toll in Iraq was raising as was our national debt thanks to unpaid for record tax breaks for the wealthy and wars fought on a credit card. Don't even get me started on how Bush was so anxious to go on one of his bike rides on his first month long vacation (after having been in office seven months mind you) that he blew off the intelligence warning titled "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S." with the curt "okay you've covered your ass" response to the presenter and hit the trails.
And we don't even have to go into how the policies of the Bush administration laid the ground work for the economic disaster we still have not recovered from. Or how he fiddled while a great American city drowned.
But you know damned well none of these conservative sites or pundits or the paper that reprinted this tripe were complaining then about the time off by Bush or calling it an affront and insult to the rest of us.
I never begrudged any Republican President his time off. Hell the fewer days on the job the better as far as I'm concerned. But as usual the conservatives do not give the same courtesy or respect to Democrats as they insist on for GOP leaders. Which makes them nothing more than partisan hacks and hypocrites.