La Casa Blanca Blames Secret Service for Exorbitant Cost of Trip to Sub-Saharan Africa

USA Today:

The Washington Post estimates that Obama's Africa trip could cost $60 million to $100 million, citing a person familiar with the details...

.... "The infrastructure that accompanies the president's travels is beyond our control," Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser for strategic communication, told the Post. "The security requirements are not White House-driven, they are Secret Service-driven."

 

ARGH & GRRR.  If we had any real journalists in the media, they would follow up by asking Rhodes who decided the destination for all that "infrastructure."

Comments

[Mannie Sherberg]

Obama desperately needs these trips -- not for political reasons but for psychological reasons. The adulation, the hero-worship, the near-veneration that he is more likely to receive in Africa than on any other continent, certainly more than he can hope to achieve here at home -- all of this feeds his narcissistic craving for adoration and glorification. This trip (and others like it) is why he ran for president. He has no more real interest in statecraft than I have in mah-jong. What he will do after he leaves office I cannot guess -- but my hunch is that -- like a washed-up ham actor who can no longer smell the greasepaint or hear the roar of the crowds -- he will be a profoundly unhappy man.