Lockdowns for Thee but Not for Me: Obama Driven 40 Miles for “Essential” Golf Outing
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“Remember,” Michelle Obama paternalistically stated on Monday, “we urge you to stay home except if you need essential healthcare, essential food or supplies, or to go to your essential job” or essential country club.

Okay, Obama didn’t utter that last part. But you could wonder why not since her husband was caught playing golf two days before — 40 miles from their home.

As Breitbart reports, “Politico‘s Playbook shared a photo of former President Obama playing golf in Virginia Saturday [4/25].”

“Obama is a member of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Virginia, where some golf courses remain open, despite Maryland and Washington, DC [where the Obamas live], closing off their facilities,” the site continues.

It’s doubtful too many other DC residents can escape their Big Brother mandated cloistering by being driven 40 miles via government chauffeur to a tony golf club. But, hey, neither snow nor rain nor heat nor virus will keep Barack Obama from his appointed rounds (on the links), as the following video, which includes Michelle Obama’s message, evidences.

 

 

And below is the full Wuhan virus PSA, with both Obamas pictured. (It’s not indicated whether those they were posing with were other Robert Trent Jones Golf Club members.)

 

 

Unsurprisingly, critics called out the Obamas for hypocrisy. “It didn’t seem to occur to her that those standards might also apply to her family,” said Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday. “And that’s why she didn’t mention essential trips to your country club” (video below. Relevant portion begins at 0:38).

The Obamas are hardly outliers, mind you. As Carlson pointed out, our leaders in general have “no intention” of abiding by the rules with which they constrain everyone else and are “making a mockery of the quarantines they so enthusiastically enforce.”

Carlson mentioned as an example Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot, who was recently caught violating lockdown orders to get a haircut (even as barbers, listed as “nonessential,” are being impugned by media and fined by governments for trying to work).

Lightfoot defensively said her rules-flouting was justified because she’s the “public face of this city.” She also stated (video below), “I take my personal hygiene very seriously” (unlike the great unwashed, I suppose).

Deflecting, Lightfoot insisted that “what really people want to talk about” are the “significant health disparities.” She said nothing about politician/people privilege disparities.

But in deflecting she has nothing on Illinois’ billionaire governor J.B. Pritzker. When asked “about the whereabouts of his wife during a press conference Wednesday after it was reported she had left the state to ride out the stay-at-home [order] from their $12.1 million Florida equine estate,” reports the Daily Mail, he resorted to the Offensiveness Ploy.

Dodging the question, the governor said it was “reprehensible” that his family was being brought into politics (video below) — “despite his wife[,] M.K. Pritzker[,] having an office in the Illinois Capitol and a full-time staffer,” as the Mail points out.

Then there’s CNN host Chris Cuomo (a.k.a. Fredo), the brother of His Essentialship, Governor Andrew Cuomo. While infected with the Wuhan virus, he broke quarantine Easter Sunday — when New York Christians weren’t allowed to attend church and celebrate their highest Holy Day — and then became aggressive with a bicyclist who questioned his actions (cyclist’s testimonial below).

The cyclist reported that Cuomo shouted, “Who the hell are you? I can do what I want!” — and that’s true.

Pseudo-elites sure can if they have enough power or connections.

It’s easy being idealistic when you don’t have to live with your ideals. It’s easy instituting restriction when you can make yourself an exception.

Of course, nobody believes the powerful could ever not be more equal than others. Presidents and other leaders will always have their bodyguards, and the hi-tech, government-built bunkers designed to shelter certain Americans after a wide-scale nuclear strike have a capacity of only 7,000, in a 331-million-strong nation (in other words, that number likely doesn’t include you). But the point is that the more leaders grow in power and the less answerable they become to the people, the less they’ll share the people’s reality.

At some point in this power-accumulation process, you find leaders shutting down an economy to allegedly fight a disease, in contravention of scientific findings.

Take the process to its logical conclusion, and you have (ex-Haitian dictator) Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier shutting down roads so he can race his expensive cars.

But it is the injustice of our current situation, that ignoring of science, that’s rankling many Americans. People could tolerate some politician-benefitting double standards — e.g., those necessary to facilitate government’s operation — were there logic behind the sacrifices. But when the lockdowns are continued despite science, reason (and now experience) showing they likely do more harm than good, the let-them-eat-cake impositions just seem to many like the exercise of power for power’s sake (though the measures’ high poll support doesn’t escape the politicians’ notice, either).

Any finding this thought fanciful should just ponder a question: How long do you think the lockdowns would last if those in power had to abide by the same restrictions everyone else does?

Photo of Barack Obama: AP Images

Selwyn Duke (@SelwynDuke) has written for The New American for more than a decade. He has also written for The Hill, Observer, The American Conservative, WorldNetDaily, American Thinker, and many other print and online publications. In addition, he has contributed to college textbooks published by Gale-Cengage Learning, has appeared on television, and is a frequent guest on radio.

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