Sounds like a selfish and ungrateful person to me. Wouldn't be sending any more money his way.

Very well put tJm. Unfortunately g each and every payday you tJm, and I DO send more money his way. Actually we send it Chinas way. We're in hock up to our eyeballs to those people. Congress and the president are bankrupting this country.

And what pray tell, is our President supposed to do for a little husband/wife time? Go to the theater like the Lincolns did? I'd say your question makes me wonder your motivations.

Look, Presidents do not control the situation that follows them wherever they go. The Secret Service does that for security reasons. If the President or the First Lady says, "I'm going to the grocery store," streets are blocked off, motorcades are assembled, advance teams are sent out to set up metal detectors, and screen other people in the grocery store. It is costly, and it is disruptive...and it does keep them from getting trapped in the White House bubble. I live four blocks from the White House and, on a pretty regular basis I go out to my car and find that my street has been blocked off and I have to wait. I don't mind dealing with that. And I am a Democrat, but I didn't mind when it happened because of either of the Presidents Bush. Watch the White House press secretary's briefing today if you get a chance. I'd be willing to bet that what he says is that the President and Mrs. Obama wrote a check to the Treasury for what it would have cost them to fly commercial to New York. That's what they're responsible for -- all the rest that comes along with that are the Secret Service's responsibility to protect the President, the military's responsibility to ensure that the President is plugged into the security/military/diplomatic network, and the press' insistence that they have to come along so they can take pictures (now THAT one bugs me). But I never begrudged George W. Bush his trips to his ranch in Texas, or the cost of installing all the required secure communications equipment, or the cost of the vastly expanded Secret Service detail to patrol the perimeter of the property while he was there, or the cost of bringing the press along to cover what happened (which was mostly nothing -- but not always). Do you remember when George H.W. Bush was criticized because he took a trip to a supermarket and had never seen a laser bar code scanner before? Like the Secret Service would have just let him stroll out of the White House, or out of the Vice President's residence in the eight years he lived there prior to becoming President, and over to Safeway to buy groceries. I guess what I'm saying is, don't worry. The criticism the Obamas get for trying to keep doing the things that ordinary people do will become so overwhelming that they'll probably eventually hole up in the White House for fear of offending anybody. At which point, you'll have all kinds of grounds to accuse them of being out of touch with ordinary Americans. So take heart. You win either way.