They tried their best to get me going this morning. Slow news day- no update on the possible aircraft wreckage in the southern Indian Ocean. Russia is consolidating its annexation of the Crimea, and there doesn’t appear to be a darned thing that will be done about it.
Don’t get me started on Venezuela- thankfully there has not been much reporting on the mass arrests of anyone who asks questions of the government. You have to poke a little to get the story, but it is quite remarkable.
I don’t want to rattle sabers- I am as war weary as the next taxpayer, but I have the nagging recollection that concession after concession does not lead to stability. Instead, it seems to inflate the confidence of the aggressor to up the stakes and double down on expansion. Maybe the anemic response by the West is the best we can do, but rewarding this behavior would only seem to invite more of it.
Oh well. Then someone threw the matter of the First Lady’s trip, sans media coverage, to the Middle Kingdom. I am not going to get spastic about it- First Ladies have traveled on their own before, also sans President, and my sensibilities are not particularly chafed by the size of the entourage of daughters, mother and 67 other security and administrative personnel carried by two Air Force jets.
This is what the First Lady does, and there is no point in getting huffy about it.
It has been a bad winter here in Washington, and it shows.
Heck, even I had to get away, though they did not let me stay in the modest Little White House at the Truman Annex in Key West.
Same deal for the First Family. In the last three months the First Family has been all over to get away from it: the two-week winter vacation on Oahu, with a bonus ten days at Oprah Winfrey’s place on Maui for the First Lady’s birthday. The President had that official trip to California to advise the Golden State on their drought and play golf; Michelle and the girls took at long weekend of skiing in Colorado, last week the long weekend on Key Largo, and now the China junket.
Well, so what? They tell me President Bush spent 31% of his time down on the ranch in Crawford, TX, and thus the talking points are that he used Air Force One as a personal taxi. The press was all over Mr. Bush about that, and of course also about Cindy Sheehan camped out down by the gate. That is the way it works, right? An alert media asking the tough questions and reporting abuse?
Funny about that. There is no press contingent on the China trip, by conscious decision. That is not to say that we will be in the dark about it, though. You will be able to get updates from the White House web site (http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/foreign-policy/first-lady-china-trip) and you can even pose questions that the First Lady will answer during her travels. Or someone in the entourage will.
Now wait, I was insistent that no one was going to get me distracted this morning. I have to be in Maryland, after all, and that, for me, is much more traumatic than a mere trip to the PRC. I need to find my internal passport and visa, search the car for objects that are legal here in Virginia and not there and divest myself of them so I don’t get in trouble with the authorities.
It seems so easy to get crosswise with them these days. I will just watch my step and try not to ask any questions. I have also been adamant that no media coverage will attend my travels, not unless they are willing to chip in for gas.
Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303