>Obama Date Cost Americans A Million Bucks

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Subject: Fwd: Cost of a Date
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 13:33:56 -0400
From: tigershaw@aol.com
To:

Subject: Cost of a Date

Some dinner date!

Cost Of A Date – A Million Bucks!

From a former Air Force Colonel….

Subject: The Date

First, let me say that I’ve moved three presidents up
to now and I’ve seen incredible waste. But, the “new” guy
really takes the cake. I don’t have an issue with the
President promising his wife dinner and a show or that he
even takes his wife out.

But, when I saw the news say that the date cost
$24,000, here’s what you DON’T know.

Three days before “dinner” a C-17 flew Marines and the
helicopter maintenance equipment to JFK Airport .

The day before “dinner” I flew the USSS and the
motorcade to JFK Airport

Our crew of 5 spent two days and nights at the Hilton
in Times Square . My hotel bill: $621.66 plus $64 a day in
per diem. The USSS guys were at a different Hilton in NYC,
so figure that cost another $14,000 (or so) plus per diem.
The Marines had to have cost as much and were there four
days, so figure another $55,000 plus per diem (for 44
Marines).

We were supposed to fly the motorcade back and go home,
but the Air Force was so short of C-17’s that we were
re-tasked to take the motorcade back, return to JFK and take
the helicopter back to Quantico .

When we got back to JFK, while the pilot was turning
the plane around to park, he noticed a rotor blade sticking
out of the hangar where the helicopter was parked and
informed me that either it wasn’t ready to transport or it
was flying home. After shutting down I walked over to the
hangar and to my surprise I find FIVE helicopters, not ONE.

We’re obviously not transporting five big helicopters.
I went and talked to the Marines guarding the “fleet” and
found that they were flying all five helicopters home and we
were only transporting the Marines and the maintenance
equipment. After talking to the Marine(s) in charge, I was
told that the White House requested FIVE helicopters. The
Marines told me that they spent all morning trying to figure
out how much it cost them to come and said they figured it
cost them $140,000 to stay there (I don’t know where they
came up with that)and the trip’s total had to be about
$1,000,000.
We heard that the President didn’t use Air Force One
(the 747) so I asked if he came in on one of the 757’s. I
was told that he came in on THREE Air Force Lear jets.
So, date night consisted of: 2 C-17’s flying three
missions, 3 Lear jets, 5 Helicopters,

Presidential Motorcade, 44 Marines, more than 20 USSS
personnel on our plane. Who knows what it cost the NYPD
and NY Port Authority (at the airport) in overtime.

These are the same people that chastised the automobile
CEO’s for using their aircraft. It further proves that the
media only uses the facts that make the President look good and hides any facts that will detract from his persona..

Is this the ‘change’ we expected?
Talk with friends and those who are not blinded by
charisma. Many folks I know who voted for Obama are very disappointed and sorry they did so.

The Emperor’s clothes on a grand scale. “Transparency”?
Remember, 2010 is just around the corner. All we have to
do is survive long enough.