at least to me. The Naples Daily news comments on Obama’s entourage to the G-20 summit. Liberals, I’m interested in your justifications. Here’s the editorial in it’s entirety.
The heads of government in London for the G20 summit are discussing serious and weighty issues, but the British press was entranced by the sheer size of President Barack Obama’s traveling entourage.
Obama arrived with a staff of 500 staff in tow, including 200 Secret Service agents, a team of six doctors, the White House chef and kitchen staff with the president’s own food and water.
And, according to the Evening Standard, he also came with “35 vehicles in all, four speech writers and 12 teleprompters.”
The press duly reported on Air Force One and all its bells and whistles but also on the presence of the presidential helicopter, Marine One, and a fleet of identical decoys.
Among all those vehicles is the presidential limousine, which one local paper mistakenly called Cadillac One, but is universally referred to as the Beast. The limo, reinforced with ceramic and titanium armor, carries tear gas cannon, night vision devices, its own oxygen and is resistant to chemical and radiation attack. It is, marveled one reporter, a sort of mobile panic room.
The president is entitled to all the security, communications and support he feels necessary to do his job but surely, when we’re trying to project a more restrained, humble image to the world, the president’s huge retinue could be scaled back to something less regal.
Although he has been able to connect to the “common man”, it appears humbleness is something Obama knows little about. Will the connection start to fray?
