The president and the first lady are on a date night in New York tonight — dinner , a show and then back to the White House.
Lots of presidents past have sought frequent escapes from what Abraham Lincoln called his “iron cage,” usually in the form of vacation homes that gave them weeks away from Washington But the Obamas are city folks and their movements and privacy (and their neighbors’) would be just as circumscribed in their Chicago home as it would be in the White House and Honolulu is a bit far for a getaway. They tried Camp David last week and the president has been playing a good bit more golf, but the city life seems to suit them most of all.
There will probably be plenty of blowback from the Obama’s hugely expensive night out — especially on the weekend before the administration nationalizes what was once the most consequential company in America. Wherever the president goes, it costs lots of money to get the motorcade, a Marine One-style chopper, security, medical support, press and everything else where it needs to be. It’s also very disruptive to the folks who serve and cover the first family. It’s what those support people are paid to do, but it’s one of the reasons that presidents (other than the 42nd) were generally reticent to take short-notice trips for their own pleasure. Costly, selfish and inconvenient are never good adjectives for politicians.
It’s a political mistake that feeds into the public perception of Obama as a celebrity president who talks about empathy but doesn’t show it. It’s the same kind of lack of understanding that brought the car executives to Washington on board private planes to beg for money.
But it’s also telling. The president spent two days in luxury hotels in Las Vegas and Beverly Hills this week raising money for Democrats and next week he heads off to a trip back to Europe and through the Middle East — including his self-styled “address to the Muslim world.” I appreciate that he wants a little quality time with the first lady in between his sojourns, but the galling extravagance at taxpayers’ expense aside, the frenetic pace and jet-setting style of the president reflects his own approach to his job. Obama wants more, more, more and is willing to ruffle plenty of feathers to get it.
