The policy here has been that the children of politicians are off limits to criticism, even when they do stuff that otherwise might be newsworthy.
That policy has been invoked as to the Obama children, consistent with our criticism of the left’s despicable and vile attacks on Trig Palin.
Thus, we have not commented on the vacation of the Obama kids.
I agree with Katie Pavlich below that the issue is not the kids, it’s the tone-deafness of the kids’ parents who do nothing to keep down taxpayer expenses related to family travel at a time the White House is shut to everyone else’s children because we supposedly don’t have enough taxpayer money.
But the debate needs to be framed around the attitude of the parents, not about the Obama kids.
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I don’t see how we can decry the taxpayer money wasted on the vacations without mentioning who is on vacation, Wm. That mention may well sound like criticism when it is no more than a calling of the public’s attention to Obama’s hypocrisy and disregard for the taxpayer. His kids are living large because that’s his lifestyle of feeding at the public trough.
Still, we must be able to say Malia and Sasha are on another expensive vacation at taxpayer’s expense whilst regular American kids cannot visit the WH.
This is not something I’m gonna get hypersensitive about cuz we turn the other check so much we feel like we’re in the Exorcist.
His kids are also being brought up in a manner that resembles that of royalty. They will end up being out-of-touch just as much as their parents.
Public life is public life and subject to scrutiny. There’s no getting around that…
I’m indifferent to how often the kids go on vacation or how much it costs, but I feel a vacationing President Obama is far, far cheaper for taxpayers than a working Obama.
Hear! Hear! Sequester Obama.
I care about the cost cuz we’re broke. If the GOP had any balls,…
Hey, it’s spring break and time to PAR-TAY Obama style:)! Rome is burning but the fiddler plays on!
I don’t agree that the First Family is off limits. EXCEPT to the extent that their safety is concerned. I.e. where they are, at what time. Beyond that, though, I believe they are fair game.
The First Family ought to be a role model of family for the nation. If the nation is belt-tightening, then I believe the First Family ought to set an example.
Instead, with this family, we get extravagant Tax-payer paid vacations, while tours of OUR White House are mothballed due to the Arrogance of ONE ASSININE MAN. (I leave it to the reader to figure out who).
The First Family is newsworthy, and if the members of the household do something newsworthy, then I believe the media has an OBLIGATION to report on such an event.
The Breitbart article in question, I believe did cross the safety line mentioned earlier, and unfortunately, is water under the bridge. However, this idea that the “Kids are off limits” to the media is a false canard. A straw man used by government to put pressure on media reportage.
Let me be clear that “Fair Game” applies only to journalistic news reporting, and *NOT* commentary.
This also applies to the private school Obama chose, where they routinely used armed guards to prevent crazed killers from shooting children. afaik, that was the school policy even before the Obama’s sent their kids there. It’s about his choice to live in opposition to his policy for middle America.
Obama thinks the proles can have their children endangered, and when they get killed, dead children are dishonored as displays for his campaign to make even more good citizens vulnerable.
Obama harms us with his firemen first policy, taking away meat inspectors, flight controllers, border guards, WH tours, etc. But he simultaneously pokes his always pointing finger in our eye, by continuing his lavish “in your face” holiday parade for his own family.
Shortly after the sequester started and it was announced that the WH tours would be halted, I heard a report that the tours were the ONLY thing in the WH budget that was sequestered. No other programs or expenses were cut. If true, why so?
Because the dicktator is just using sequester as a cover to get us out and keep us out of his castle. It will not open again, mark my words.
If I waste Money
On something for my children
It is still a waste.
The Obamas are deciding to burn through the taxpayers’ money like a bonfire. They could tell Sasha and Malia that they the American Taxpayers could not afford a half million dollars so they could ski over Spring Break, but they chose not to.
It is not criticizing the Obama children to fault President Obama for this decision.
Obama has showcased 8-year-olds as the voices of wisdom and moral authority in demanding that adults be denied the right to bear arms and support other parts of his agenda. His campaigns have shamelessly used children to cajole their parents into voting for him.
Malia and Sasha are old enough to have noticed that their father is constantly bashing the rich, and saying that “everyone’s gotta sacrifice,” and threatening citizens with suffering due to an alleged shortage of tax funds (extracted from citizens).
Malia and Sasha are old enough to understand that our money was being spent on them for vacations that most of us cannot afford, right after their father denied us the right to visit “the people’s house” where they live in great comfort at our expense, and denied tuition assistance to veterans who have put their lives on the line.
They probably ASKED to be sent on vacation in two different locations thousands of miles apart. They appear to be acquiring their parents’ “values.” But they are old enough to take moral responsibility for their actions.
Some of their father’s political supporters have taken heavy-handed action against 7-year-olds for the crime of holding or drawing something that slightly resembled a gun, or play-acting about destroying the forces of evil. Those children are confused and frightened, but the adults believe they should have understood they were doing something very bad.
Malia and Sasha should have understood they were doing something selfish. Their parents should realize they are encouraging their daughters to be selfish and hypocritical. That apparently doesn’t bother them.
For the most part I agree with you on this.
For one thing it is not commonplace for such young women to go on “Spring Break” vacations without their parents. Nor for them to go on very extravagant vacations. Certainly we might see this happen in very wealthy families, but they pay every cent themselves. The obamas would never be sending these children off on this type of vacation were they not being funded by the Main St. citizens.
While I think it is appropriate to consider the children of politicians strictly off limits to scrutiny, once they begin using the money of the Main St. public to party and vacation on then their relationship to the public changes. Our middle class children cannot join a soccer team because gas prices are so high, but we are compelled to pay for two dozen persons to guard the vacationing obama children while they live/party like royalty on OUR dime.
I see nothing inappropriate in acknowledging the fabulous lifestyle the obama children are living as long as the girls themselves are not being disparaged. I don’t believe any other President has had the first family vacationing in such a fantastic fashion, and I hope this is not going to become a trend in future Presidencies.
Just my two bits…. I’ve raised 4 kids who’ve gone on various school related trips over the last 25 years. Some were for contests, some were educational and a few were for fun. One thing that all of those trips had in common was that my kids (and most of their friends) were responsible for raising the funds to pay for those trips. In short they earned their way. Even going on a family vacation requires their father and I to put in extra work, cut a few corners and save the money for the extravagance of taking a few days off work to go camping or to visit their grandparents.
While the Obama’s are responsible for paying a certain part of their expenses, there is an accompanying burden on the taxpayer for them to engage in their extravagance. The American taxpayer is working longer hours to make ends meet and is faced with rising prices for fuel and food that are direct results of this administrations policies. A large number of Americans who were previously insured will be losing their health coverage under Obamacare. It seems that there is a compelling reason to examine the contrast between these Americans who are paying for this extravagance and the 1st family who seems to consider little other than their own sense of entitlement to enjoy their recreation at our expense.
And the same could be said for Obama’s “perpetual campaign travel”, where a single trip to give a speech incurs over a $1 million in expenses.
I am still dumbfounded that such young girls go off on fancy vacations without their parents. When I was a kid, we only went on family vacations, with the occasional summer treat of spending a week at Scout camp in a private park a few miles from home. When Dad couldn’t get away from work to go on vacation with us, we played in the backyard or went swimming at the Y.
Lavish vacations for children, what will they think of next. The America I grew up in, and the kind of American family I had, are long gone I guess. As L.P. Hartley wrote in his 1953 novel: “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Go-Between
The kids are afforded a presumption of innocence and better judgment. Once they grow up and adopt a philosophy based on reason rather than emotion or naivety, then they will be eligible for rational criticism.
Obama wants us to believe that children younger than his daughters are offering rational arguments and pleas for taking guns away from adults, and that adults should listen to them.
Girls who are permitted to take distant vacations without their parents should be presumed old enough to apply some reasoning to their actions.
Right on!!
Sasha and Malia Obama ‘Learn What They Live’
By Jeannie DeAngelis
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/03/sasha_and_malia_obama_learn_what_they_live.html
I’m pretty sure Sasha and Malia didn’t steal the keys to the presidential limo and take off alone and unprotected without telling anyone.
Where did anyone suggest such a notion?
The fact that they got parental approval doesn’t make it all okay. It means the parents indulged their daughters’ extravagant requests at a cost to taxpayers, while saying that taxpayers must suffer and be endangered unless they cough up more money for Obama to spend.
The girls made selfish demands. The parents said yes. The taxpayers are stuck with a big part of the bill. The only innocent party is the taxpayers.
Ad hominem attacks should be avoided, because they do nothing to support a conservative position.
Otherwise, what these faux royalty do in the public eye, on the public dime, is fair game for criticism. Zero’s kids are not innocent little children who are so naive that they even need help wiping their butts. They are old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, between sincerity and hypocrisy, between responsibility and irresponsibility. No one forced them to go on lavish vacations – they are willing participants. So they shouldn’t be so shocked (shocked, I tell you!) to learn that their actions have resulted in “bad optics.”
If they don’t like the heat, they can quit bellyaching, STFU, and get out of the kitchen.
It takes a village to raise a child.
A Bahamas. Village , an Hawaiin village , a Sun Valley village , An Aspenvillage , a Martha’s Vineyard village & the nice little Quaker schoolvillage with its high security armed guards.
Does not matter which village those 2 are in – they are always snarling .
shariah and malaria are fair game. Their alleged parents trot them out when they want to USE them to score points or money, so I will be damned if I pull any punches when the show ponies are living like royalty on my dime. I am DONE with the commiecrats and their selective “civility.”