Michelle's Excellent Adventure

Michelle’s Excellent Adventure

The First Lady took a vacation.
She went with her daughter Sasha to Spain.

The media did not permit the ladies to enjoy their outing.

If Michelle Obama and daughters were not residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue no one would have been interested in their trip. Mothers and daughters go off on adventures all the time. Sometimes it is just to a local beach, the golf course, or shopping for new dresses.

On these occasions, they get in the family automobile and take off. They pay for the gasoline, the food and any purchases with the contents of the family purse.

When the Obama gals go anywhere they are accompanied by aides, secret service, armored limousines, medical personnel, and people too numerous to mention.

My take on all this: as it should be.

Living at The White House is both marvelous and horrible. Read the memoirs of those who have had the experience.

While you are temporarily given an exciting opportunity you are also temporarily asked to forgo the pleasures of anonymity, privacy, and individual action.

The reader might well say: that’s the deal. They wanted the job with all the perks so they get the “downside” too.

To an extent I have no problem with that. I think the people who choose the life could be a little more willing to take the bad with the good. I also know that the pressure that comes with the job can adversely affect good decision making, it can make the atmosphere in the private residence of The White House tense, it can put people in situations where they are not at their best.

We want the President and his family to be at their best. We want the President to have a refuge in the family quarters. We want everyone involved being reasonably happy for four or eight years. It is in our national interest to want this.

But the most important reason for wanting the President and his family to travel the way they must is their safety.

Every terrorist or anyone wanting to hurt America, or with the idea they could affect decision making, or any “nut case” just wanting to make a name for himself, would attack, kidnap or kill a member of the president’s family in a “New York second” IF THEY COULD.

As a people we must be invested in making certain THAT THEY CANNOT.

I am not naïve. I understand that Michelle and Barak Obama could restrict their travel in order to appear prudent, to seem concerned about the fiscal condition of America and the unhappy lot of many of their fellow citizens.

In this way they would be protected within the cocoon of security we already provide to them. We also provide a “camp” (Camp David) where they can enjoy a different atmosphere and security is already in place. We provide the opportunity for them to entertain lavishly and to invite anyone they want. In their home they never need to make a bed, prepare a meal, or drive a vehicle. They do not need to shop for groceries or anything else.

Some would suggest they should be happy with such a situation. Name a president who was! I know of none in recent memory.

So I am happy the President’s family had the chance to go to Spain. I hope they had a grand time. I hope when they returned they provided the kind of family support and comfort a president deserves and needs in order to conduct the duties of his office.

I have seen estimates that this adventure cost the taxpayers a sizeable piece of change.

Well, if Mrs. Obama paid her personal costs and those of her daughters, and I believe she did, we can hardly criticize her because the job her husband holds requires that a small army accompany her wherever she goes. Those decisions are not made by the President or by his family.

That is where some cutting could be done. It seems reasonable to expect the President and his family to consider appearances in their personal decisions.

In this age of terrorism we have, perhaps, overreacted. It would seem reasonable that the first family, minus the President, could travel with a few bodyguards and the occasional luggage handler.

I think of Harry and Bess Truman.

She stayed most of the time in Independence, Missouri, not caring at all for the requirements of White House life. When their term came to an end, Harry told reporters who wanted to question him on his return home to Missouri that they would have to wait while he carried his bags upstairs in his own house. Many years after his presidency, when Congress enacted legislation to protect presidents and their families after their time in The White House, Harry refused to graciously accept and his “minders” had to live off site and watch him and his family from a distance.

Those were simpler times my friends.