Day Two of the First Family’s Very First Summer Vacation and all is well in the land. After all, it was a tough seven months and the presidential household needs time to rest, recoup and get it together. Besides the 2008 Hawaiian Christmas holiday is so far in the rear view that no one remembers it and the upcoming winter might be brutal.
Ah… I remember when I used to take real vacations, not unlike the Obamas. The last one was Christmas 2005 spent in a soggy San Francisco but we had a great time. But with two kids in college in the last four years, who has time or money to vay-cay? Time away from the office tends to be stolen in minutes or weekends carefully wedged in between day-to-day survival in challenging economic times.
So the Obama show moves to Martha’s Vineyard for the next couple of weeks. Le Prez even admonished his fevered worshippers to leave him alone. I’m all for that. I feel like I’ve seen him and his family walking around the house in their skivvies. They're here, they're there, they're everywhere. The man is grossly overexposed so a moratorium of sorts is right up my alley. As I’m fond of saying, “Hallelujah and pass the margaritas!”
When I think Martha’s Vineyard, I think money and pedigree. I also think lobster — which is my favorite food of all time and buckets of fried clams. However, the choice of the trendy island enclave is a mystery to me. It also leaves the little red-headed stepchild Michigan out in the cold.
Who is this Martha, and why does she get a Vineyard?
Who planned this summer getaway anyway?
What about the Mitten State?
Yeah, Michigan. I’m no native, but don’t mind tooting the horn. We have plenty of water, more freshwater shoreline than any other state. We have four of the five Great Lakes and lots of lesser ones inland. There is fishing and boating galore.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Matthew T. Sussman
God, those Tim Allen commercials drive me insane. Especially when I'm on hold for 30 minutes with the unemployment office.
2 - Georgio
Joanne...I think you would find something wrong with the Obama"s no matter where they went on vacation even though Bush was on vacation or in a coma for eight years..Having said that I AGREE with you ..why not vacation to a state that needs the money...he could have picked any town along the coast of Michigan and had just as good of a time as the vineyard ..I was a Charter Captain in New Buffalo Michigan for several years and it was some of the best times of my life..I disagree with you about the fish how ever ..the Chinook Coho and perch where excellent and the shoreline is as good as anywhere
3 - Ruvy
You're asking Obama to do something good for his country, Joanne? That would like having asked Hitler to donate to the United Jewish Appeal! Or asking Obama to do the same, now that I think of it....
This is the man who wants to wash the stink of terror and murder out of 9/11. This is the man printing so many dollars they will be great for wallpaper (or toilet paper) in a few years. Are you serious?
4 - zingzing
yay! ruvy makes the obama/hitler connection! haven't seen that before! ruvy needs to make the ruvy/toilet connection, because his shit is going to the wrong place! yay!
5 - Joanne Huspek
Actually, I would have sung Obama's praises had he chosen the poor stepchild as a vacation spot. NO ONE wants to come here, well, none of my relatives anyway, so my poll is totally unscientific and unreliable.
Ruvy, I beg to differ with you on one thing. Hitler DID set up a state all-Jewish symphony to prove to his naysayers that he really wanted to take "care" of the Jewish problem. The flipside was that he had other more ominous intentions. Read "The Inextinguishable Symphony." It was an eye opener.
6 - yuk
Next time you drop live lobsters into boiling water, listen to them scream. It adds something to the meal.
7 - Ruvy
zing,
You become more and more like a piece of trash named JOM who was banned here. You remember him, don't you? Your comments are more and more like his, and you lower yourself to his level. If any of the results of my sojourns on the toilet go in your direction, then they are certainly going where they need to.
As for the Hitler/Obama connection, that is a bit premature. But the Osama/Obama connection, which you managed to miss, is right on target.
8 - Ruvy
I'd be more than happy to visit Michigan - but I'm not rich enough for the airfare, and paying $175 to renew a passport to a nation about to go down the tubes is not worth it to me. In addition, the money would go to the State Department - an enemy of Israel. I do not finance my enemies.
9 - zingzing
"You become more and more like a piece of trash named JOM who was banned here."
so do you.
"If any of the results of my sojourns on the toilet go in your direction, then they are certainly going where they need to. "
see?
it was just a clever way to say you miss the mark. or you're full of shit.
"But the Osama/Obama connection, which you managed to miss, is right on target."
sure it is. that's just malarkey. all the bill does is remind americans of the solidarity we felt in the aftermath of 9/11. it's not trying to wipe away the terrorist aspect of it. what should we do, make 9/11 a day of fear, or a day that brings out the best in us? so you can take your right wing drivel and shove it. that column reeks of absolute bullshit.
10 - Dr Dreadful
Ruvy,
zing has at least two things going for him that JOM didn't have:
1. A sense of satire.
2. More than one brain cell.
11 - Dr Dreadful
Michigan looks lovely in those commercials. It's just a heck of a long way from where I'm at. Or indeed anywhere except other bits of Michigan.
12 - fearful
Perhaps Obama was guided in his choice by a fear of redheads.
13 - Cindy
10
your list is too long (or too short).
here's my list of things zing has going for him that jom didn't have:
1. everything
14 - Cindy
6
You are supposed to stab the lobster between the eyes with a chef knife to give it a merciful end. I can't cook a lobster. The few times I have cooked clams, I couldn't enjoy eating them. I love lobsters and clams, as long as someone else does the killing part.
I can hook a fish! (provided no worms are involved) But someone had better kill them quickly. In my experience they are excellent escape artists. Once, all the fish that were swimming in the kitchen sink, managed to escape back into the lake.
15 - Tex
I prefer going after the little fuckers with my chainsaw, but that's just me.
16 - Cindy
lol!
17 - Clavos
Great article, Joanne, and a good point.
I've noticed before that Obama's staff apparently lacks anyone versed in the rudiments of PR and marketing; had he had a good PR professional advising him, he might have had much better luck with his Obamacare project, and Michigan likely would have had the FF vacationing there.
Not only does the Vineyard not need the exposure, but his choice of vacation destination makes him look like the elitist he says he's not.
18 - Dr Dreadful
Or perhaps the Vineyard, being a traditional playground of the rich and powerful, is an easier option security-wise than Michigan.
At any rate, at least Obama isn't going to be spending three months of every summer sitting around on a Texas ranch like his predecessor.
19 - Clavos
Or perhaps the Vineyard, being a traditional playground of the rich and powerful, is an easier option security-wise than Michigan.
Sure Doc.
20 - zingzing
"Or perhaps the Vineyard, being a traditional playground of the rich and powerful, is an easier option security-wise than Michigan."
you know, this IS a vacation. if i were the president, i'd rather not go near the water in michigan this time of year. mosquito-ridden and itchy is not my idea of a good evening. watchin the sunset beneath a wave of insects does not get one laid at night.
the real point is that if he were to politicize his choice of vacation spots, it wouldn't really be a vacation, would it? if this were just some big p.r. campaign, meaningless though it would be, do you think michelle would go for that? no. she wants a mother-fuckin vacation, and she wants it now, and she wants to go where she wants to go, not to where republicans want her to go.
if you can refute a woman's wish, i'm all ears. (really. i'd like to know. that would be an awesome, superhero-like ability. i'd take that over shooting rays out of my eyes any day. gets downright annoying.)
21 - roger nowosielski
I guess anything becomes a political issue insofar as Obama is concerned.
We do live in interesting times, don't we?
Sorry, Joanne. Didn't mean to impugn on your motives plugging for your home state.
22 - Dr Dreadful
Nobody has asked the obvious question yet.
Which is this.
Are we to expect further condemnatory articles from residents of the other 48 jilted states?
23 - doug m
Obama doing something good for America equates to Hitler doing something good for Jews? That has to be the most foolish thing I have read in ages. It would be funny if it didn't reveal a tragically sad ignorance
24 - roger nowosielski
You said it. I'm sure there's rhyme & reason there somewhere.
25 - Silas Kain
Stop for a moment and imagine the profundity of this year's Obama Family Vacation. In the middle of it, just tens of miles away, Ted Kennedy dies. Now place the film reel in rewind.
The JFK period ending in 1963 was BEFORE the Civil Rights Act. At the heart of the battle for Civil Rights were the Kennedys. And here we are this August weekend. An African American family is vacationing on Martha's Vineyard. And the patriarch of that family happens to be President of the United States.
On Saturday morning Senator Kennedy's funeral will take place in Roxbury. For those of you who don't know it, think Harlem with an Irish Catholic flavor. All four former Presidents will be there. Jimmy Carter. George H.W. Bush. Bill Clinton. George W. Bush. There they wil pay homage to a fallen patriot in a Roman Catholic Church in a racially charged neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts. And there they will sit from Bubba to the whitest man in the world (W) and listen to the first African American President. What a fitting way to go. How some of us have indeed come full circle.
That's not a bad vacation for Barack Obama. That's history.