The Obamas in paradise
August 26, 2009 by Kevin Dayhoff
Last Sunday President Barack Obama, and his extended family and an entourage of friends and colleagues, arrived in a "New England paradise," Martha's Vineyard.
According to the Associated Press, “Some Obama friends, including White House adviser Valerie Jarrett and Chicago physician Eric Whitaker, joined the family, as did Obama’s sister, Maya, and her husband. The president has no official events scheduled in the week ahead.”
The same article noted, “CHILMARK — The first family settled in today for their vacation on Martha’s Vineyard not long after Hurricane Bill scampered away, leaving behind big waves and heavy rip currents for the Obamas.”
You, dear reader, are left to decide if that introduction was allegorical – or not.
Being a poor southern boy, I have never been to Martha’s Vineyard – or as the locals up there call it, the “Vineyard.”
And not because it is as the New York Times explained; “the exclusive haven of the Eastern liberal elite that conservatives tar as an exclusive haven of the Eastern liberal elite.”
Of course, in the same article, it was noted, “At a fundraiser on the island two years ago Mr. Obama called it “one of those magical places where people of all different walks of life come together — where they take each other at face value.”
Julia Wells, the editor of the Vineyard Gazette, recently wrote that President Obama called it a place where “I can wander around in shorts and not shave in the morning and no one talks about it.”
No, it is a simple matter that it is too far away. Not to mention, that according to an April 6, 2007 article in the Vineyard Gazette: “The cost of living on Martha's Vineyard is about 60 per cent above the national average…
“Grocery prices, for example, which affect all income groups more or less equally, were 37 per cent above the national average and 13 per cent above Boston… Transportation costs were 39 per cent above the national average and 22 per cent above Boston. The cost of miscellaneous goods and services was 44 per cent above the nation as a whole and 10 per cent more than Boston…”
You see, the 10-mile-wide by 23-mile-long island (as in surrounded by a moat) off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts; in an area know as the “Outer Lands regions,” is priced at the outer limits for someone such as myself.
Ms. Wells also wrote: “The Vineyard was a community long before the word became a cliché. And it’s not all rose-covered fences either; isolated from the mainland, with high rates of alcoholism, depression and domestic violence, the island can be a hard place to live in the winter. In summer it draws plenty of wealthy elite, lately specializing in Democrats.”
It has not always been a bastion of liberals. Ms. Wells notes “Thirty-five years ago when I started working as a reporter here, the island was still a Republican stronghold… (The) camps and farmhouses (owned by Republicans) have been torn down and replaced with mansions. Political leanings have shifted, and Republicans are now an endangered species.”
President Obama is not the first sitting president to vacation on the island. President Ulysses S. Grant vacationed there for three days in August 1874. Various published accounts note that “President Bill Clinton vacationed on Martha’s Vineyard four times over his eight years in office.”
The New York Times calls to our attention “The August issue of the local glossy monthly Martha’s Vineyard Magazine has a feature indicating that nine U.S. presidents have frequented our usually tranquil island… Four (Chester Arthur, Ulysses Grant, Calvin Coolidge and Richard Nixon) were Republicans, John Adams was a Federalist and the other four (Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama) Democrats: presidential visits are surprisingly nonpartisan.”
The not-so-nonpartisan traditional media has been, well, giddy about the president taking a vacation. To be certain, of course it is a good idea for the president – and anyone else with enormous responsibilities – to take a vacation.
Vacations are important whether you are a local police officer, a factory worker or the head of a major global corporation. I said that when President George W. Bush was president and nothing has changed for anyone to arrive at a different conclusion.
Jill Nelson, the author of the satirical novel set on the Vineyard, “Let’s Get It On,” remarked that “Martha’s Vineyard is Alice’s Restaurant for the mind, body and soul: once you find it, you can get anything you want.”
Hopefully the president and his family will be able to get some peace and quiet, not to mention, some space from the media – unlike the vacations of President Bush.
White House spokesman Bill Burton said that President Obama wants the media “you to relax and have a good time. Take some walks on the beaches. Nobody's looking to make any news.”
Can you imagine the reaction of the media if President Bush had decided to spend his summer vacation at the $35,000 per week rented farmhouse on 28 acres bordering Tisbury Great Pond.
USA Today reports, “Obama's getaway is Blue Heron Farm, near the island's center and owned by Republicans William and Mollie Van Devender of Jackson, Miss.”
I really do not care where President Obama spends his vacation.
Of course, it was expected that he would vacation in Hawaii, where he was born and lived for part of his childhood. Hence the greeting signs by the islanders, “Aloha Obama Family.”
If you will recall, the media championed signs of a different sort when Cindy Sheehan greeted President Bush, in 2005 when the president vacations at his own ranch in Texas.
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For additional thoughts on the Obama Vineyard 2009 vacation go to my Tentacle column for: Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Cindy’s Restaurant…Kevin E. Dayhoff
On Sunday President Barack Obama, his extended family and an entourage of friends and colleagues, arrived in a "New England paradise," Martha's Vineyard, for a much-deserved vacation.
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Cindy’s Restaurant…20090826 sdosmKED Obama Marthas Vineyard
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