By Steve “the Mailman” Breen Going Postal
A SEXY UPGRADED BOEING 757 WITH new Rolls Royce engines, custom paint job and interior: $110,000,000.
A night stay in the Presidential Suite at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin: $15,550.
Two-point-four million donors to pay for it: PRICELESS!
In the denouement of the Dauphin of Democratopia’s Density of Hype Tour, one is left to ponder how Barack Obama’s overseas dog and pony show with his stenographers from the major networks, now known as ObamaTV,will pornographically propagandize him in securing the American presidency. I heard that Obama’s “tour of duty”sent a shiver down Chris “Hardball”Matthew’s other leg.
While Obama has co-opted the faux-fur accouterments of a president, he has neglected to notice that he has not yet been elected to the position despite the turgidly tumescent ululations of the French and German people. I placed an inquiry to a local travel agent, Anna- April Ross, to see what a leased Boeing 757 was spinning for these days: $9,000/hour or $1.5 million for a 7 day booze cruise. This figure is not reflective,however,for the inclusion of fuel, flight crew, in flight meals, movies, landing fees or stops at the drive-thru window at Spago’s.
The Mughal of Moolah also had the paint scheme redone on O Farce One. As the paint and labor doesn’t come from Home Depot, custom jobs like this start in the high six-figures department. Obama also stripped the American flag from the tail and emblazoned it with his personal coat of arms while the entire passenger cabin interior was razed and redesigned. The rear third of the bird was designated as the press section, affectionately dubbed the “veal pen”by its habitués.The walls of the plane are also adorned with candid photos of HRH Obama’s favorite subject — himself. The forward First Class section features only four seats of which a single throne has the “Obama ‘08” campaign emblem embroidered in the headrest so that it frames him like a Byzantine Emperor’s halo. It complements his redesigned Presidential Seal.
O Farce One, or “Sally”, as the Charlemagne of Change has christened her, will log 18,222 round-trip miles on this tour of Barack-a-palooza. She sucks up 11,489 gals of JP5 jet fuel at the going rate of $4.59/gallon.The five “fill ‘er ups” will run $263,672. You can keep the change. On an environmental note,“Sally” will vomit forth 32,443 pounds of CO2 while air-borne, which begs the question: How many polar bears were crushed and drowned beneath the studded jackboots of Kaiser Barry’s carbon footprint?
While this is a mere distraction from what’s really important to the Europe … uh, I mean, the American people, there aren’t any polar bears in Germany or France anyway. C’est la vie. Sa Majesté Barry has certainly accessed a brighter and better future for himself at the expense of the unwashed rabble among his $5- $25 donor base.
After all, his donors pimped his new ride, bought the gas for the trip, fed his entourage in the best restaurants and furnished the five star hotel accommodations while they had to decide between putting gas in their cars or taking the bus and eating ramen with Spam for the month. In the aftermath the of the Sun King of Hope’s departure from the “broken system of campaign finance”, he has returned to the gilded pork trough of political fast cash and plutocratic excess that the federal campaign finance limits had sought to curb since 1972.Accepting federal campaign funding enforced a degree of frugality upon a given candidate while forestalling any charges that the Seal of the Presidency was fiscally procured.
By June of 2008, the Imperator of Change had blinged his way into $287 million ducats since the beginning of his campaign while expending $244 million ducats to beat up that sweet little old lady from New York. He outspent her three to one and barely limped across the finish line with a 41,000-vote lead out of 34 million cast.
I would neither quantify nor qualify that expenditure as a reasonable return on one’s investment. As Obama professes that he will lead the U.S. economy to greater fiduciary solvency, I am bereft of any confidence in his ersatz claim considering his compulsive shopping habits to burnish his Lilliputian foreign policy portfolio with donor financing.Or more importantly,how will he plunder the pockets of the U.S. taxpayers if he is elected president?
While feasting at the banquet of applause from foreign kings and adulatory European audiences, an inchoate mob paid for his trappings of satrapy.
Meanwhile, McCain was with the Hobbits of Ohio having bratwurst and beers and engaging in “kitchen table diplomacy” that Obama, while sipping a sublime Chateau Margaux with President Sarkozy, has arrogantly neglected in favor of a more refined class of people.
STEVE BREEN prefers his political BBQ medium rare and conservatively roasted over an open Mesquite grill and is still the “best looking mailman in the U.S. Post Office.” He
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 6, 2008. Read the original PDF.