The Telegraph reports:
Arriving in the idyllic coastal retreat of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, Mr Obama left behind him in Washington DC high profile debates over the budget, government surveillance and his health care reforms. Instead, he will spend the next eight days playing golf, going to the beach, and buying books from the Bunch of Grapes bookstore.
In the air he swapped his suit and tie for khakis and a blue shirt with rolled-up sleeves, while Mrs Obama wore a yellow-and-white summer dress.
Bo, the president’s Portuguese Water Dog, arrived separately on one of two MV-22 Ospreys, a hybrid aircraft which takes off like a helicopter but flies like a plane.
To underscore Obama’s do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do ethic, let’s recall his famous avowal from the 2008 campaign:
“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.”
Thomas, helicopter?? That would have been inexpensive compared to the Osprey.
http://www.g2mil.com/V-22costs.htm
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/osprey-costs-soar/
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/24/141589693/the-osprey-good-reviews-but-a-costly-program
“The Marine Corps did this analysis and found that while the V-22 costs more to fly per hour than other options, it is more efficient because it can carry more passengers a greater distance. The CH-46 costs $4,600 per hour to operate, but carries half as many passengers as the V-22 and travels slower and not as far. The CH-46 costs $3.17 per passenger-mile. The CH-53E, the Marines’ heavy-lift helicopter, can carry extremely heavy loads on its cargo hooks (sling-loaded below the aircraft) but carries the same number of passengers as the V-22 (like the V-22, the CH-53E can carry more troops when loaded without seats, but this analysis uses troops-in-seats for comparison since this is the officially approved measure). The CH-53E costs the same to operate hourly as the V-22 but travels slower and therefore not as far, so it costs $3.12 per passenger-mile. The Navy’s newest H-60 version—the MH-60S—costs much less per hour (just over $2,500), but it can carry only seven passengers and also has a shorter range. The MH-60S costs $2.84 per passenger-mile. The V-22 costs almost $11,500 per hour and can carry 24 passengers at speeds over 250 knots—nearly twice that of fully-loaded helicopters. The V-22 costs $1.75 per passenger-mile.”
(Improvements have dropped that to $1.46/ppm. Of course, moving only one dog that becomes expensive!)
http://www.ndu.edu/press/v-22-osprey.html
A dog fly in a helicopter while the Air Forces loses some of its detection capabilities via the sequestration. The word always sounds like “Castration” to me. A clown loses his job while a clown in the White House sends his dog in a helicopter to the White House. The clown who lost his job will never be allowed to work for a rodeo again. The clown in the White House has put 18,000,000 either into unemployment or part time jobs. STOP THE WORLD I WANT TO GET OFF!
Then there are the locals complaining about how nasty the O’Bammies are to them…
Yup, lotsa distractions.
My conspiracy theory is that Barry won’t fly with an UNCLEAN animal in the same aircraft. As the Osprey is a Marine hauler he picked it to humiliate the Marines in front of his Jihadis friends by forcing them to fly an UNCLEAN animal!!
The Marines, no doubt, prefer the dog.
Anyone can argue about the politics of Malkin and Coulter. Personally I find the former too screechy and the latter too self promoting, but I will vouch for one thing they do have in common. Both write well with massive documentation and footnoting. A sane debate with either of them will leave most who try seriously shredded. Unable or unwilling to try, most then go off on the standard name-calling attacks.
The designation “Marine One” (along with “Airforce One”) is a callsign/flight number. Rather than being attached to any specific aircraft.
It’s also hard to see how any vehicle able to carry 4 human passengers could not carry 4 human passengers and 1 canine passengers.
Your point is more than valid. Bread, circuses, Bo and Benghazi (with the loss of human life–“What’s it matter?”) are now expected and accepted, while behind the scenes the Fabian statists are writing laws to steal everything Americans have worked for and own. It’s called UN Agenda 21, and it’s being promoted by stealth in every local community in the United States. Distractions and the death of a US Ambassador can only help the cause.
Mr. Bell, did your beer supply run out at 3:07 am? And tell us, what have you taken the time to research, write and publish in order to add to the conversation about keeping the United States of America God’s blessing to the world–Fabians included?
We’ve got to stop falling for the distractions. The chopper was going anyway to bring in support staff and supplies. They deliberately baited everyone by putting the dog on here. We should know by now to watch out for something to be pulled off while everyone is chattering about this.
If there’s one thing you are, MT, it’s respectful. You’re a gentleman. But it’s OK to be snotty from time to time–especially when you’re right! It seems that’s all idiots understand anymore–raw power, if not snottiness and personal embarrassment, to cause them to first think about, and then (hopefully), amend their ways. We’ve reached that point in America.
Another terrific endeavor (not unlike Milloy’s “Green Hell”) hit the bookstands today, and it’s both snotty and truthful. Here’s a preview for you, should you choose to indulge:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/12/Interview-Mark-Levin-Liberty-Amendments-Breitbart-News
Here’s a bit of a preview: “That is why I want to repeat, as I said early on: we need to think like Americans again, and not be cowed like defeated subjects. The idea is ‘ordered liberty,’ not ‘ordered tyranny,’ which is where we’re headed.”
If I were snotty, I’d suggest that flying Bo around was more pleasant than flying the President or First Lady. But I’m too respectful to suggest that.
You don’t even need it to be in a kennel. The White House has sufficient staff that they can have one of the butlers or maids feed the pooch or take it for a walk.
There is something to be said about having domestic help so that the president can focus on the affairs of state and taking time to relax so he doesn’t burn himself out.
However, outright waste of resources is something completely different.
There is one and only one acceptable answer for this. IF they needed to move the Osprey anyway and just took the dog along out of convenience (which does happen). Otherwise, it is an absurd use of resources.
Howdy Mr. Bell
When you’ve presented actual arguments worthy of discussion and potentially refutation, you’ve gotten responses along the same lines.
If all you want to do is insult us, as your last couple of posts have done, you are lowering yourself considerably.
‘Get to da CHOPPA!!!’
Yea, and just think Bobby, you got Maddow and Mitchell.
Say what you want about The Queen, but when she heads off for vacation the corgis travel with her .
The runways are always the proper length for air Uhaul. Every kid should have a mutt, but the taxpayers shouldn’t be stuck with the bill for this one.
I feel sorry for our servicemen who had to serve their country by transporting a dog.
The teleprompter had to get to MV somehow, and maybe the dog rode along. Still, MVY has a 5500’ runway, and it handles USGC C-130s and USAF C-17s. So, using a specialty aircraft like an Osprey does seem like an egregious over-kill for anything brought to that island; if it were really-really big, it could be handled at Otis MANG base on the Cape and ferried over. Regardless, why was the dog there at all? The story has the aroma of someone deciding late (the kids?) that they had to have the dog there. So his imperial highness dispatched an Osprey to get it there quickly, and with a lot of I-have-the-power ostentation. I wonder if he’ll stop at Logan on the way back to greet returning servicemen & women.
More ad hominem.
We have a President who believes saying it in a speech is action and he is never held accountable for just words.
I seem to remember the media all over Bush 41 because he had the audacity to go to the vacation home he owned and go fishing in a boat he owned because we were in a very mild recession. Obama, with the country in a deeper recession and a recovery that seems to make the lost decade in Japan look good, seems to live as ostentatiously as possible. After all, it isn’t his dime.
As for the dog, he can either take the dog with him and not separately, have it driven (9 hrs) along with other stuff or, like most of us peons, put the mutt in a boarding kennel. Separate transport for family and pets is either totally on his dime or should be investigated under waste, fraud and abuse.
@MT
“Absurd” being the key word.
Mr. Obama enjoys a lifestyle known only to a few since the Roman Emperors and is governing every bit as well as Nero. His unabashed hypocrisy is breathtaking in its sweeping breadth.
The V-22 is far more than a chopper as most people think of a chopper. It would be wasteful enough to use a Huey or a Kiowa or even the large bird that flies as Marine One. But the V-22 is a cargo plane, much larger and uses a whole bunch more gas than a small chopper would. This is an absurd use of military resources.