Posted on 07/16/2010 11:00:19 AM PDT by Nachum
President Barack Obama (D) is treating his multi gazillion dollar spend our way out of debt and unemployment stimulus as his own private make work program, tossing taxpayer dollars to favored constituents, such as unions, and to favored areas, such as his home city of Chicago.
And now he's making it even more private, choosing his family's personal cook, Sam Kass, imported from Chicago, as...Senior Policy Advisor for Healthy Food Initiatives. As reported in Judicial Watch, prior to his latest elevation
Michelle Obama made Kass a "Food Initiative Coordinator" for her new healthy nutrition program which is supposed to eliminate childhood obesity within a generation, especially in the nation's inner cities. The First Lady claims that childhood obesity is a threat to national security and a crisis equivalent to AIDS and youth violence.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The list, ping
Personal Cook?
I hear he has great buns!
Didn’t one of the Roman emperor’s make his horse a Senator or something to that effect?
Off to Google this very subject right now....
YEP.
Yeah. From when they lived in Chicago.
Now he heads up a 400 million dollar taxpayer funded “healthy foods” initiative.
Thanks MObama!
Why not, he is as unqualifed as the rest of 0bama’s staff.
/johnny
Beats head on desk.
Beats head on desk.
Beats head on desk.
Beats head on desk.
Beats head on desk.
Beats head on desk.
Beats head on desk.
Beats head on desk.
Beats head on desk.
Yea....what’s that song Rush used to play about that black woman senator from IL.....”moving up” or something...hey man, barry and michele are gonna live as high on the hog as they can get away with...after all “The Man” has been keeping them down for so long...Oh, wait, they got to the best schools through the white Man’s affirmative action...yea, well, too bad sucker!!
Incitatus was the favored horse of Roman emperor Caligula. Its name is a Latin adjective meaning "swift" or "at full gallop".
According to Suetonius's Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Incitatus had a stable of marble, with an ivory manger, purple blankets, and a collar of precious stones. Others have indicated that the horse was attended to by eighteen servants, and was fed oats mixed with gold flake. Suetonius also wrote that Caligula planned to make Incitatus a consul.
Incitatus was named not only a citizen of Rome, but a member of the Roman senate.
The horse would "invite" dignitaries to dine with him in a house outfitted with servants there to entertain such events.
TWICE a month, President Obama’s senior policy advisers gather at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to hash out strategies for improving the health of the country’s children. Among the assistant secretaries, chiefs of staff and senior aides sits an unlikely participant: a bald, intense young man who happens to be the newest White House chef.
His name is Sam Kass. And when he’s not grilling fish for the first family or tending tomatillos in the White House garden, he is pondering the details of child nutrition legislation, funding streams for the school lunch program and the best tactics to fight childhood obesity.
Part chef and part policy wonk, he is reinventing the role of official gastronome in the Executive Mansion. Indeed, Obama administration officials describe him as a vital conduit to the first family. “How do I get to the first lady, how do I try to transmit ideas and messages to her? Sam Kass,” said Kathleen Merrigan, the deputy agriculture secretary. “He’s been a real ally when we talk about farm to school.”
Mr. Kass, 29, forged a close bond with the Obamas while cooking for them and their children for about two years before they moved to Washington and has golfed with the president on Martha’s Vineyard. Behind the scenes, he attends briefings on child nutrition and health, has vetted nonprofits as potential partners for White House food initiatives and regularly peppers senior staff about policy matters. (“Do we have a toxicologist who specializes in colony collapse disorder?” Mr. Kass asked in a recent e-mail message about the Department of Agriculture’s position on honey bees, Ms. Merrigan recalled.)
While he is steeped in all matters locavore and was a moving force behind the White House garden, Mr. Kass has no formal culinary training and has never run a restaurant or hotel kitchen.
He has baked Swiss chard frittatas for students on the White House lawn, prepared chicken salad with red onions and toasted almonds at the Department of Agriculture’s cafeteria and sprinkled crab meal and ladybugs — instead of chemical fertilizers and pesticides — on the first lady’s garden.
Friends say he cooks primarily for the Obamas, while the executive chef, Cristeta Comerford, handles most formal gatherings.
(People magazine called Mr. Kass one of “Barack’s Beauties” in its list of 100 Most Beautiful people this year.)
“We find ourselves in a fight to salvage a food system that has been ravaged by an approach of quantity over quality,” he wrote. “The industry our society has built around food is harmful and unsustainable.”
Mr. Kass has toned down that kind of talk since he came to the White House in January. These days, he describes big agricultural producers and fertilizer and pesticide companies as “partners,” not obstacles to reform.
Mr. Kass and other officials say improving school lunches and widening access to farmers’ markets for people on government aid will benefit the poor. “He’s often the one who stops the conversation and says, ‘People will do this and won’t do that,’ ” said Jocelyn Frye, Mrs. Obama’s policy director, who has pronounced Mr. Kass’s collard greens and barbecued chicken “very good.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/dining/04kass.html
******
People are losing jobs and we need this ‘policy wonk’ why?!
Obama, et al, are SO OUT OF TOUCH!
Does Michelle Obama even know how to cook?!
Thank you. Got distracted @ work.
As a point of interest, the story could have just been propaganda dreamed up by Caligula's enemies. However, if it were true, the most common interpretation of this event is that Caligula had no special desire to elevate his horse. Rather, he was making a mockery of everyone else. "You're a senator? You seem like a horse's ass -- just like my dear friend Incitatus!" "You're an important dignitary? Would you like to come to a feast? In my horse's stall!"
Personally, I think Obama is doing the same thing. "You stupid Americans! As an elected official I have no time to waste on you -- I tee off in 30 minutes. But do not worry, my cook shall rule over you while I am away!"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.