What I find to be particularly outrageous in all this is that there doesn't even appear to be an attempt to cloak this trip as a good-will jaunt. When Bill Clinton was President Hilary and Chelsea went to trips but they were coupled with diplomatic missions or meetings. The same with Laura Bush when George W. Bush was President.
This is a vacation jaunt, with 60 or so of her BFF's, are we paying for them too?
Material girl Michelle Obama is a modern-day Marie Antoinette on a glitzy Spanish vacation
By Andrea Tantaros - NY Daily NewsSacrifice is something that many Americans are becoming all too familiar with during this economic downturn.
It was a key theme in President Obama's inaugural address to the nation, and he's referenced it numerous times when lecturing the country on how to get back on its feet.
But while most of the country is pinching pennies and downsizing summer sojourns - or forgoing them altogether - the Obamas don't seem to be heeding their own advice. While many of us are struggling, the First Lady is spending the next few days in a five-star hotel on the chic Costa del Sol in southern Spain with 40 of her "closest friends." According to CNN, the group is expected to occupy 60 to 70 rooms, more than a third of the lodgings at the 160-room resort. Not exactly what one would call cutting back in troubled times.
Reports are calling the lodgings of Obama's Spanish fiesta, the Hotel Villa Padierna in Marbella, "luxurious," "posh" and "a millionaires' playground." Estimated room rate per night? Up to a staggering $2,500. Method of transportation? Air Force Two.
To be clear, what the Obamas do with their money is one thing; what they do with ours is another. Transporting and housing the estimated 70 Secret Service agents who will flank the material girl will cost the taxpayers a pretty penny.
