Playing golf with Tiger Woods doesn’t look good with 12 million Americans out of work and a $16 trillion debt
Nile Gardiner
The Telegraph [UK]
18 Feb 2013
…It is not hard to see why Barack Obama is rather camera shy over his latest golfing outing, this time with sports superstar Tiger Woods. The optics certainly don’t look good for a president who has in the past called on Americans to make sacrifices, while blatantly refusing to do so himself. It’s certainly not an image the president wants to project to the 12.3 million Americans who are out of work, or the millions more who are also seeking full-time employment. Nor does it suggest he is serious about reining in the $16.5 trillion of debt his government owes, $6 trillion of which was racked up in his first term of office. Flying Air Force One to Florida at a cost of about $180,000 per hour hardly sends the right message to US taxpayers, who have just seen their payroll taxes go up. This is the latest demonstration of an overwhelming culture of impunity in a celebrity-obsessed Obama White House, frequently coupled with a disturbing lack of transparency that would be roundly condemned by the likes of The New York Times, NBC, or CBS if a Republican were in office. It is also a presidency that is rife with hypocrisy, as Obama’s words in Virginia in April 2011 perfectly convey:
We are going to have to ask everybody to sacrifice. And if we’re asking community colleges to sacrifice, if we’re asking people who are going to see potentially fewer services in their neighborhoods to make a little sacrifice, then we can ask millionaires and billionaires to make a little sacrifice.
This must-read article is at The Telegraph.
Update: Days Before Sequester, Obama Ends Golf Trip
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