Under the screaming headline Obama's Katrina? with the equally screaming sub-title "The new president seems dangerously out of touch," the Wall Street Journal is running a story about...
A couple of parties in the East Room of the White House.
I could not make this shit up!
Since the presidency changed hands less than six weeks ago, a burst of entertaining has taken hold of the iconic, white-columned home of America's head of state. Much of it comes on Wednesdays.
The stately East Room, where portraits of George and Martha Washington adorn the walls, was transformed into a concert hall as President Barack Obama presented Stevie Wonder with the nation's highest award for pop music on Wednesday.
A week before that, the foot-stomping sounds of Sweet Honey in the Rock, a female a cappella group, filled the East Room for a Black History Month program first lady Michelle Obama held for nearly 200 sixth- and seventh-graders from around the city.
Cocktails were sipped during at least three such receptions to date, all held on Wednesdays.
We do not begrudge the president his fancy cocktail parties. Indeed, if anyone in the White House is reading this, please add us to the invitation list.
But there is a dissonance here that is rather hard to miss. The same president who last month lectured private-sector executives, "You can't get corporate jets, you can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime," is living large in the Executive Mansion that we taxpayers have generously provided him.
It's Hurricane Katrina all over again!
...but only in the psychotic fantasy-world of the Wall Street Journal.
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