Smirk flew from DC to Texas just to vote. How much did THAT cost us?

[Rageneau]

Bush is so incompetant that he forgot to request an absentee ballot for the Texas primaries today. So what does he do? He uses AF1 to fly himself to Texas, where he is met by a motorcade, which drives him to Crawford so he can vote.

How much did all THAT cost, I wonder.

I know this, though. Had it been Clinton who -- through his own incompetance -- had forgotten to request an absentee bollot, and had he flown to Little Rock to vote, the right-wingnuts would still be shrieking about it to this very day. And there would be investigations into it in both the House and Senate.

Part of "our" problem is that we don't raise hell about every little damned thing we can -- like the Freepers and the other wingnuts do. The average Joe might be foggy about other things, but he can easily see what a waste of money this is, and who caused it. He can also see the arrogance of Smirk to use OUR expensive airplane for his personal needs.

If we could/would bitch about things like this, it would help our cause.

[givemebackmycountry]

1. On Lou Dobbs tonight he raised that exact point -

And to answer your question it cost about $48 grand.

But...I agree.

[Journeyman]

6. In Mr Bush's defense, postage did go up in January. . .

and when seen in that light, what's $48 million against a better than 5% postal increase? Especially as it would not qualify to be franked and he would have had to pay for it from his own pocket. And pay for his wife's, too. So there you go -- his out-of-pocket cost is double what any of us may have considered before this, so the use of Air Force 1 seems even more justified than before.

I just cannot believe some people on this board, who in their hatred of Mr Bush would insist he pay, what? -- almost 80 cents from his own pocket rather than use Air Force 1 . . . which was just sitting there, by the way. And you know, if someone bothered to work the math, I think we'd find that Mr Bush's excursion to vote probably cost each of us less than two-bits apiece. It cost us all less than 25¢ apiece for Mr Bush to avail himself of what he could have done almost for free with a little forethought, but are we big enough to see this larger picture and realize someone with a Pooh Bear-sized brain like Mr Bush cannot possibly think anything through, let alone a complicated task such as addressing an envelope. No, we'd all rather gripe about the $48 million rather than stay focused on the one important issue to emerge from this event, the knowledge that for the first time in his life Mr Bush has shown fiscal restraint and kept his postal money in his pocket. Who knows but that, on the morrow, Mr Bush may use that pocket change to buy a hot dog from a street vendor in New Orleans, thus doing more for the employment situation in that instance than he's done in all the past five years.

[TexasProgresive]

9. Does that include the transport jets carrying limos,

Marine 1 and all the other crap that has to be there to secure BabyBush? My guess is that it costs about 48K an hour for this whole shebang.

[Mountainman]

2. Why didn't he get an absentee ballot?

[Dogmudgeon]

3. Not nearly as much as Team Bush has cost us since 12/13/00

Spending $50k to cast a vote is no big deal when a $5.5 trillion surplus has been squandered into a $2 trillion deficit, and the admiration and prestige of the country we love has been sullied. Seventy years of hard work since the last time the idle rich destroyed the economy, gone in an orgy of greed, piety, and phony patriotism.

We are the world's laughingstock. We will survive Bush, but the price for reconstruction will be steep, and mending broken friendships will take a long, long time.

--p!

[orleans]

4. okay...let's be fair

it was up to the staff or aids to take care of this little detail

and of course he had to fly there to vote. i mean, can you imagine a president who doesn't vote? what kind of example would that set?

how can they possibly rig another election if no one is voting?

besides, flying around and "voting" is "hard work!"

cost of jet fuel: over 6,000 dollars

price of trip: over $50,000 per hour

picture of druken bush stumbling down steps of air force one: PRICELESS!

(damn! if only we could've gotten that third one!)


("$56,800-per-hour the Air Force estimates it costs to run Air Force One.")

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-06-01-air-force-one_x.htm

"cost of jet fuel one hour of travel in Air Force One has increased from $3,974 in 2004 to $6,029 in 2005

http://democrats.senate.gov/energy/factsheets/102005.html

[Bluebear]

5. Dud he say "Maht as well stay a week! Heh heh heh! Heh heh heh!" nt

[Joanne98]

7. 40,000.00 according to Lou Dobbs

[Disturbed]

8. Shrub says that Americans must conserve gasoline.

He is special though, so he can waste as much as he wants to.

[Mnemosyne]

10. .