Tonight, President Obama flew from Andrews Air Force Base to New Port News, Virginia. A grand total of one hundred and six air miles in a Boeing 747. Would anyone care to guess what that cost viz a vis Marine One, the presidential helicopter, which could have flown the president to his meeting at a gargantuan savings in less time. What is going on? I know who is in charge, or allegedly in charge. I’m no longer that worried or frightened re the economy, I’m more worried that the inmates have taken over the asylum. Crazy stuff is going on. One piece of bad news after another out of Washington and it is not economic.
Please share widely!
that you checked, and established that no other President ever used Air Force One for such a short flight. You did check, right?
Because he felt safe in the plane.
If others made foolish decisions too, then it’s OK to make them again? You guys just can’t take MCRD.
and we are likely to see a detailed analysis shortly, indeed, perhaps even a flight log of every trip a president has made in Air Force Once since its inception. I’m sure he’s cleaning up the formating as we speak.
<
p>Any minute now.
<
p>Hang on.
<
p>Wait for it.
A 747-100 burns 3638 gallons of jet fuel an hour.
That is 9,900 kg/hr. How about that for a carbon footprint to go to a meeting a hundred miles away. Additionally there is the TFR umbrella that goes over New Port News and the additional USAF air cover and their fuel burn,
(fighters and tanker) USCG helicopters. Or the Marine One helicopter with less than a hundred gallons an hour of fuel burn. What are they thinking?
So please stop the act.
because 50% on the dollar is pissed away. Burning up over 3000 gallons of jet fuel to take a smoke break is not my idea of efficiency and it is throwing money away. When I was i the service I constantly bitched and moaned about throwing money down the crapper because most people didn’t give a crap. Nice pictures of the president chewing gum. What’s next?
That’s about the only part of your post I believe. On what basis do you think you pay more taxes than anybody here? Or even characterize Obama’s trip as a “smoke break?”
<
p>For that matter, do helicopters really get better fuel milage?
” I pay more taxes than probably most people here. “
<
p>Transliteration: I’m one of the richest people on this board
Translation: Now you know why I’m a Republican
Why is this the first time we hear anything from you on wasting energy? Why did we not hear any complaints about Bush’s vanity trips? We all know why. You have zero credibility on this issue.
<
p>Sometimes you have some good things to say, but lately you seem to be restricting yourself to infantile baiting.
<
p>BTW, your analysis is under the incorrect assumption that only one vehicle moves when the president travels. It also assumes that only a small number of people traveled, that other costs involved are the same, and that there were no security considerations. Only someone who is trying to make cheap shots would make this assumptions.
<
p>Please grow up.
<
p>
Fuel burn calculations
URLs in the titles of comments are particularly useless.
<
p>You do this a lot. So I suppose it’s consistent if you know what I mean.
Utterly useless for his argument.
Ya—I worked three jobs the better part of my life and did well in other ventures. I saved and was prudent and now I am generous to others less fortunate which is more than I can say for democrats likey Kerry and Biden. Oh and I pay my taxes, unlike most Washington democrats (or it appears that way).
and when it turns out that they took questionable deductions or failed to report some income, they just say their accountant said it was ok. We have no reason to believe you are any different.
(1) There’s no hiding from them. They can read the hearts and minds of men, dammit
<
p>
<
p>(2) All others not like them (“rich people,” Republicans, non-progressives, conservatives) are universally awful people. No exceptions! Until knighted by Kevin,
<
p>Guilty until proven innocent!
<
p>(3) Apparently, they neither need accountants nor file complicated taxes returns.
We progressive readers of BMG are able to read the collected writings of this diarist and arrive at reasonable conclusions.
<
p>However, your jump into the land of Mallard Fillmore caricatures of liberals was accompanied by no similar body of evidence.
They pretend to be outraged and then pretend to get offended when you point out their fake outrage and hypocrisy.
<
p>Not surprisingly, you also appear to totally have missed the intentional irony in my generalization of all rich people cheating on their taxes. Of course they don’t. Nor do most Washington Democrats. That’s the point.
Let’s look at this from the point of view of narrative and Republican spin.
<
p>Following President Carter’s emphatic modesty (walking for example after the inauguration), President Reagan became big on the trappings of power, the Importance of the President. I remember thinking in the early 80s how this was part of making him seem important.
<
p>By contrast, in 1993, powerful Republicans never accepted the Clinton presidency. They were always trying to make him look smaller. They did this while trying to get airports, highways, and — if they could — planets and stars named after Reagan. Clinton had much of the casualness one sees in places like academia or technology companies. They exploited that.
<
p>After Bush arrived, everyone was in coat and tie. Heaven forbid Bush be called anything other than “Mr President”. Bush strove not to be first citizen so much as to be quasi-nobility. His Administration was a well-executed theater of incompetents in suits acting in a made-for-TV roles of statesmen. Think about it: who is more incompetent than Dick Cheney?
<
p>So that’s what we’ve had. Modest Democrats building consensus in a shaggy kind of way alternating with capital P Republican Presidents well-practiced at looking Important.
<
p>Our diarist is trying to turn this crank another revolution.
<
p>To the zealots of the right, President Obama isn’t really President. He shouldn’t really be riding in Air Force One. He shouldn’t have a car. He should rent out the White House. If he’s going to pretend to be President, it should not be comfy.
<
p>I think that’s why we’re seeing diaries like this one, not just here but elsewhere too.
http://www.reuters.com/article…
the Marine one helicopter was also used. It’s not clear whether it was the one stationed near the White House or if it was another one.
Wasteful spending and the entitlement is annoying and inexcusable. Perhaps Bush was giving the left the final “salute” understandable, but I do not condone it. I find most politicians personally annoying, most are incompetent, and most are unable to hold down a decent “civilian” job due to their failings.
I will find a post where you criticize Bush for that little AF1 hop, or any of the other times he made similar trips? Or are we going to pretend that was the only time Bush did something like that? Are you sure?
…I just wished we had him/her for the last 8 years! Imagine what MCRD reaction would have been to the $12 billion that disappeared in Iraq during the Bush years (and that is not counting the billions more spent on things that didn’t work).
<
p>BTW, the Secert Service may have had something to do with this…Marine One can not fly high enough to avoid shoulder fired missles.
<
p>Also, you need to do a cost analysis of 3 helicopters vs one Air Force One, because of the factor cited above, two decoy helicopters fly with Marine One in a “shell game” like pattern to confuse would be attackers.
<
p>Thank you for your concerned trollism.