Media
The Spring Break that wasn’t
Barack Obama’s daughter went for spring break in Oaxaca, Mexico. That in itself is yet another example of a First Family luxuriating at American taxpayers’ expense. But why did so many media organs, after covering it, abruptly erase their own articles?
The spring break story
The spring break story itself is bad enough. A 13-year-old girl goes on vacation to a place that the State Department has warned Americans not to go. Why? Because Mexican cops, troops, and gangs are shooting at each other, that’s why. Stray bullets kill people there all the time. Then, too, any innocent person might vanish from the streets, and no one will hear from them again. Criminals have kidnapped Americans and other foreign visitors and held them for ransom for years.
What a lovely place for a little rich girl to go on spring break! The Quinn Martin/Warner Brothers television show The FBI featured lurid kidnap plots involving girls her age dozens of times during its run. (The reason: J. Edgar Hoover wanted Quinn Martin’s scriptwriters to tell these stories, to remind people of the FBI’s long-running campaign against the kind of person who kidnaps people for ransom.)
But Malia Obama is no ordinary girl on spring break. Her father happens to be the man now holding office as President of the United States. So the United States government must send a 25-member bodyguard force to protect her and twelve very privileged friends. These guards (all from the Secret Service) even block access to a major hotel, in the middle of tourist season.
This is Air Force One on the tarmac while the President gets a hair sculpture all over again. But this time it’s worse. At a time when few Americans can even afford a vacation, a Presidential daughter acts like the most arrogant sort of devil-may-care hereditary princess. Bad enough when Michelle Obama behaves like Marie Antoinette. Worse when her own daughter behaves that way.
Candidate Rick Santorum said that the Obamas set a poor example. The problem is not the high living. But Obama sent his daughter down there alone when the State Department said that no one should go, because it’s too dangerous.
But soon another scandal would make her behavior look tame.
Obama sanitizes the Internet!
Yesterday, The Blaze and Politico published an incredible story: articles describing Malia Obama’s spring break were disappearing! The Daily Mail (London), The Daily Telegraph (London), and The Australian had all covered the stories; so had Associated Press and Agence France-Presse. But now, according to Politico, AFP’s old link goes to another story having nothing to do with the Obamas or with spring break. The three British Commonwealth links resolve to the not-found page that all Web sites carry. The links on other sites resolve only to the home page.
So how does CNAV have a link? The Montreal Gazette chose not to scrub their story, that they had from Agence France-Presse. They kept the story up. Kudos to them for their shining counterexample to a scene out of the motion picture version of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four. The stunning part is that British Commonwealth organs obeyed the orders of the Department of Truth, also known as The White House. Or to be more specific, Her Majesty’s Government now has a Ministry of Truth (Minitrue), that co-ordinates with the US Department of Truth.
And the White House brazenly avowed that they ordered the Internet to sanitize itself. Kristina Schake, SecTrue (officially known as Communications Director, FLOTUS), said:
From the beginning of the administration, the White House has asked news outlets not to report on or photograph the Obama children when they are not with their parents and there is no vital news interest. We have reminded outlets of this request in order to protect the privacy and security of these girls.
“No vital news interest”? A Presidential daughter places herself in serious danger and travels with an entourage that even Elizabeth Taylor did not have at her age, and that is of “no vital news interest”? But of course, even SecTrue could not deny that Malia was on spring break. Not when another site had a photo of Barack, Michelle, and Sasha Obama going to church last Sunday, without Malia.
The Obamas attended Church one member short on Sunday as Malia,13, is on Spring Break in Oaxaca, Mexico. The eldest daughter of the President and First Lady is enjoying a little R&R with 12 friends in the historic town known for its immaculate architecture and Native American traditions. Malia and her friends have already visited the Tree of El Tule and viewed the architecture of Milta. The young tourists plan to visit Monte Alban before returning to the United States.
And then came the earthquake.
Earthquake strikes
This was not a media earthquake. That has not happened yet, if it ever will. This was a real earthquake, of magnitude 7.4 on the Richter Scale, near Acapulco. According to USA Today, 60 homes collapsed, 800 others suffered damage, and a large area lost power and water. Of course, it could have been worse: the ground could have liquefied and caused unimaginable casualties and damage. (Liquefaction can happen when a strong-enough earthquake strikes water-logged ground. The ground turns literally to mud, and no building built on it can stand.)
And yes, people on the ground felt the temblor as far a way as Oaxaca. Go on spring break, and feel an earthquake! And if the ground had shaken harder, and liquefied, Malia and her entourage would have been a little too close to the action.
So now SecTrue had to say,
We can confirm that Malia Obama is safe and was never in danger.
No more time for denials. And now Malia’s spring break is of “vital news interest”! So admit The New York Times and TVNewser.
What have we learned?
In forty-eight hours we have learned:
- The Barack Obamas think nothing of taking lavish vacations at taxpayer expense. Now they even send their daughter at the head of a 13-member teen entourage, with 25 Secret Service agents in tow, when most Americans can barely afford a Sunday drive.
- A father is so arrogantly sure of his authority in the world that he sends his daughter on spring break to a place where our own State Department says: Don’t go.
- People notice. This is the age of the Internet. Can Obama have forgotten?
- We now have a Department of Truth. The man now holding office as President can order news organs all over the world not merely to retract their coverage, but to erase it as if they never covered the story to begin with.
- The integrity of some (in this case, The Montreal Gazette) is still a shining counterexample to the corruption of others.
- Acts of God (in this case, a consequence of the Global Flood, as all earthquakes are) can still confound the arrogant.
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Terry A. Hurlbut has been a student of politics, philosophy, and science for more than 35 years. He is a graduate of Yale College and has served as a physician-level laboratory administrator in a 250-bed community hospital. He also is a serious student of the Bible, is conversant in its two primary original languages, and has followed the creation-science movement closely since 1993.
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Wow… going after minor children now? Classy journalism right there.
Here’s a thought, instead of focusing on rubbish, how about commentating on the GOP candidate’s policy positions… oh wait, they don’t have any. Besides banning porn and building moon bases.
With this post, CNAV happily wallows along with the rest of the gutter press. Congratulations.
Since when have journalists really let the President’s children alone? We knew all about Amy Carter raising the price of lemonade when her father went from “Governor” to “President-elect.” And about her bringing her reading matter to State dinners.
And even that is forgivable. When she goes out and does something this embarrassing, not to mention orders-of-magnitude dangerous, to the point that TMNHOAPOTUS could become a subject of the most despicable sort of blackmail, that is of vital news interest.
And I resent, detest, and indeed abominate Departments of Truth who tell news media what to do, and what they may print and what they may not print.
Lavish? You could probably get away with going to Oaxaca, round trip, for like 500 bucks. It’s not exactly a premiere destination like Cancun. It’s just a nice inland city in Mexico. I was just there 2 years ago for a few days and it wasn’t the drug- and cartel-infested place you make it out to be. In fact, your own link doesn’t offer any travel advisories to Oaxaca.
And why do you think they would request people don’t report on this vacation? Perhaps because she’s the daughter of one of the most powerful people on the planet and he’d rather she didn’t get kidnapped and ransomed? Oh wait this is CNAV, where everything Obama does gets blown out of proportion.
Five hundred dollars maybe got you there by automobile, and specifically your own. It does not get you there in a C-32 (that is, a specially modified Boeing 757 complete with a bedroom), with a 12-member entourage and a 25-member bodyguard.
My point was that it’s not exactly an expensive place to go to.
I notice you ignored the rest of my points, i.e. that there are no travel advisories about Oaxaca despite you painting it as a dangerous place to visit.
Except that the travel warnings do not exempt Oaxaca.
To be more specific, a local travel agent says that, to be safe, a tourist needs to stick to his hotel, his bus, and the sites that the tour group visits, and never stray.
From your own source:
Oaxaca: Oaxaca, Huatulco and Puerto Escondido are the major cities/travel destinations in Oaxaca -see map (PDF, 286 kb) to identify their exact locations: No warning is in effect.
I’m curious – how did Bush’s daughters travel around? How did Chelsea travel around?
Do you really think that the POTUS’ daughter should just hop in a car and drive around? Or is this just another excuse to holler “Look! I really, really hate Obama, but I’m not going to admit to the real reason why I do!”
And why shouldn’t she go wherever she likes. In fact, I’d say that the fact that nothing happened would indicate that the travel warnings are over-blown.
But hey, you’ve got a President to hate on, so why not pick on a minor child. No doubt you feel Jessica Alquist should be raped and murdered too.
[…] Barack Obama has abused both his special transport and the White House for his own fund-raising, Michelle Obama’s shopping sprees in foreign lands, and Malia Obama’s spring break. […]