Ed Morrissey:
President Obama has gone on a three-day fundraising tour in the midst of crisis, which has drawn sharp criticism over White House priorities — especially since the Obamas will take a 15-day vacation in just a couple of weeks, too. The White House ducked the criticism but ended up encouraging even more of it from the press, which itlocked out of the events.Politico vented some steam at Obama in two pieces over the last two days:
Tuesday, the reporters and photographers traveling with the president on Air Force One and in his motorcade were left on the gravel path not even within sight of former Costco CEO Jim Sinegal’s house in the Seattle suburbs where Obama sat for a Senate Majority PAC fundraiser with a $25,000 entrance fee.
Wednesday morning, when he met with big donors for the House Majority PAC at the Four Seasons hotel in downtown San Francisco, they weren’t even told what room or floor he was on.
“We think these fundraisers ought to be open to at least some scrutiny, because the president’s participation in them is fundamentally public in nature,” said Christi Parsons, the new president of the White House Correspondents’ Association. “Denying access to him in that setting undermines the public’s ability to independently monitor and see what its government is doing. It’s of special concern as these events and the donors they attract become more influential in the political process.”
Despite constant complaints from the press corps and promises from White House officials, access to the president continues to be limited. The constantly repeated line that they’re running the “most transparent administration in history” tends to prompt snickers. Halfway through Obama’s West Coast swing, it’s tipping toward outrage.
The Most Transparent Administration Evah? Not so much:
What’s even more irksome for the press is that this approach to super PAC events is coming from a president who has publicly criticized the Citizens United decision and distances himself from the PAC that supports him.
“How many people Obama met with was a secret. How much they paid to get in was a secret. Finding out who the people were? Forget it. Even a general account of what the president said to them? Not from this White House.”
Perhaps this comes more from embarrassment than secrecy. The San Francisco Chronicle reported overnight that Obama and Democrats had to heavily discount the entry fee to get the place filled, and concludes that “donor fatigue” has set in — even in Nancy Pelosi’s political base:
What I read elsewhere was that some ”donors” got in for $5,000 or best offer!
Obama wants/needs to see filled seats all around him.
Worshipful faces gazing up at him.
A few years back the Obama administration was questioned on the costs to the taxpayers to fly Obama on AF1 to all these fundraisers. One particular trip involved a visit to Austin, Texas for a high dollar per person fundraiser. Quickly, the Administration changed Obama’s itinerary and all of a sudden it included a trip to El Paso to give a speech there at the border (the infamous “alligators in a moat” speech) so that the trip could be written off as coming under Obama’s presidential duties (speaking to the common people). The purpose of the trip was changed to seem like it was a visit to the El Paso border, not a tony fund raiser in Austin.
Now, there is not longer any such pretense. Obama just flies around on our dime, and doesn’t make excuses for it. As part of the 1 percenters, he apparently feels entitled.
Israel is being bombarded by Hamas which just refused a cease fire; hundreds of thousands of unknowns are flooding across our southern border; Putin is showing Obama that Obama is powerless to influence world events and that Putin will invade any sovereign nation that he damn well wants to according to his goal of reconstituting the USSR; ISIS are marching across a nation that was paid for in American blood, and slaughtering Christians in the process; passenger plans are being shot out of the sky by Russian backed Ukrainian rebels, killing all aboard; a decorated Marine sits in a Mexican jail for doing what Mexican citizens do in America every damn day while Mexico aids and abets illegal entry into our nation on the Texas border, and yet, and yet, Obama seems detached, aloof, unconcerned with anything but fund raising, golf, and vacations to the point that even the NY Times is commenting on his disengagement and how he seems to just want to reap all the benefits of being POTUS while he still can.
And even still, his approval ratings are still in the low 40’s. Ask yourself, how did a nation that had fought so hard for its independence, and the independence of others all across the globe, become so apathetic?
@retire05: obama was raised by communist family members and mentors. He was also raised in foreign countries. He doesn’t have a clue what it is like to be an American.
America has a muslim terrorist in the wipe house. Wake up!