Posted on 03/09/2013 7:20:03 PM PST by Kaslin
The front page of Saturday's Washington Post took the publicity stunt of shutting down White House tours and spun it as an educational event. The headline was “In canceled White House tours, a civics lesson: Disappointed tourists help administration show sequester’s pain.” Inside the paper, the headline was “Worthless tickets drive home government’s dysfunction.” Ahem, the tickets are free even when they are honored.
The online headline was even worse: "With canceled tours, White House teaching how democracy works." Reporter David Nakamura blamed not Obama but the "dysfunctional state of the union":
The White House tour is a civics lesson on American democracy. And starting Saturday, when 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. shuts its doors to the public, that lesson will focus on the dysfunctional state of the union.
After "bummed out" members of the public were quoted, just four lines before the story jumped off the front page, pouncing Republicans were allowed a rebuttal, and the word "stunt" was eventually mentioned as a Republican complaint:
Republicans have pounced, questioning why the Obama administration is ending the free, self-guided visits to a building that ultimately belongs to taxpayers.
Administration officials say the decision was made by the Secret Service, which estimated that ending the tours for roughly 11,000 people a week would save $74,000 in weekly overtime costs. That adds up to about $2 million in savings through the end of the fiscal year in September, it said.
Nakamura didnt mention that ABCs Jonathan Karl estimated the weekly tour cost at $18,000 a week.
Are you kidding? They have their heads way to deep stuck in the butts of this administration.
Why are next week’s tours still cancelled, since the White House had a firm offer for payment for those tours?
That’s not a civics lesson, that is a personal lesson about electing a narcissistic man who could care less about the people he supposedly serves.
Once they had offers for donations to cover the tours, the White house should have set up a donation page. They’d have enough money to sponsor the tours for a year. I’d even donate.
I’d love to see a demonstration outside the white house with signs saying:
“White House Tours not Pro Golfer Tours”
“Start the Tours, Stop the Golf”
“Stop Playing Golf and Open the White House”
“Honor the Children, Honor your Commitments”
“Open the People’s House, Cut back on Vacations”
Bump
The WH has a $1.4 billion budget and we’re supposed to believe cutting $18k per week is significant? Give me a break......
Given that we're a constitutional republic, Obama is teaching how a dictatorship works.
-PJ
Sean Hannity and Eric Bolling of FOX News have each offered the $74,000. So far it’s crickets from the White House and their propaganda division the MSM.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2994622/posts
There shouldn’t be any cost for the SS. As you pointed out, the people they’re paid to protect from the real “homeowners” are never there.
Maybe the Washington Post can put on an exhibition of a reporter kissing the butt of a democrat... it won’t quite make up for not seeing the White House but it’ll be ‘Civics Lesson’ ....
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