ILLINOIS SCANDAL

Sorry, We’re Booked, White House Tells Obamas- ARTICLE
By Helene Cooper
Michelle, Malia and Sasha Obama met Barack Obama’s campaign plane in Colorado on Nov. 1. (Photo: Damon Winter/The New York Times)
Updated 3:12 p.m. CHICAGO—The White House has turned down a request from the family of President-elect Barack Obama to move into Blair House in early January so that his daughters can start school on January 5.
The Obamas were told that Blair House, where incoming presidents usually stay in the five days before Inauguration Day, is booked in early January, a spokesperson to the Obama transition said. “We explored the idea so that the girls could start school on schedule,’ the spokesperson said. “But, there were previously scheduled events and guests that couldn’t be displaced.”
It remained unclear who on Bushes guest list outranked the incoming President.
“It’s not a public schedule,” said Sally McDonough, spokeswoman for First Lady Laura Bush, in refusing to disclose who was staying at Blair House. “It’s not a question of outranking the Obamas. Blair House will be available to them on January 15.”
Ms. McDonough said “there’s nothing more to say other than that it’s not available and won’t be available until January 15.” She added that “you’re trying to make a story out of something that’s not a story.”
A State Department official said he didn’t know of any foreign dignitaries staying at Blair House in early January.
A White House official said that Mr. Bush does not have family or friends from Texas staying at Blair House during the period which the Obamas requested. But Blair House, the official said, has been booked for “receptions and gatherings” by members of the outgoing Bush administration. Those receptions, the official said, “don’t make it suitable for full-time occupancy by the Obamas yet.”


RESPONSE

As human beings believing in a higher power, it’s no wonder that I am still in ’shock and awe’ at the never-ending depth of ignorance that is coming back up the throats of some of these posters. There is NOTHING in this story that indicates a monetary value, a sense of indignation at not being able to stay at Blair House and you can best believe that a ton of paparrazi will be outside that residence on that day!. Now, what if John McCain had won the election and the very same denial was put to him- would you declare the same preposterous allegations on him? Would you snidely ignore the fact he has enough homes to demand he be entitled to the residence?
Refusing to acknowledge a truth in front of you is ignorance…is a migraine for which you refuse to figure out its source. No doubt these are some masochistic people who love their own pain.
And let me say this- what exactly is in a name? “Hussein” is a common Islamic name that carries no assumption or prejudgement with it. To link President-Elect Obama’s middle name to the terrorist we SHOULD HAVE been looking for is not even an intuitive leap worth exploring; yet if you’re one who chooses to use the master soundbite of all soundbites (the internet) as the only source of your truth, then you deserve the darkness in which you wakeup.

-MONICA IBANEZ