Are We Supposed To Get Upset Every Time Obama Travels?

Drudge headlines that Obama’s trip to Chicago costs $236,000, linking to a Chicago Tribune story. The Tribune goes on to note that this leaves out associated costs such as Secret Service protection, motorcades and helicopter transport.  Only after the big headline about how much the trip costs and a few other paragraphs did the story indicate that the Obamas have taken only one recreational trip to Chicago in five months in office, and that expensive as that trip was, it was half the distance that George W. Bush regularly traveled to his ranch in Crawford, TX, where he spent 447 days of his presidency.

His flights to Chicago also are cheap by comparison with those President Ronald Reagan made to his Western White House, in Santa Barbara County, Calif., a cross-country trip that was roughly 4,700 miles round trip.

But Obama could shatter that cost with a trip to Hawaii if he decides to go there for his family’s annual vacation between Christmas and New Year’s. The round-trip cost of a flight from Washington to Honolulu on Air Force One would be roughly $1 million, according to the GAO estimates.

On the heels of a New York trip that had the right wing  in a lather, it looks as though the president had the gall to travel again, this time to Chicago (even though this was to give a speech on health care).  And, in additon to focusing on the cost of the trip and burying the costs comparative to other presidencies, the table is being set to rev detractors up about a trip that hasn’t happened yet and, as far as we know, isn’t yet planned.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.