I haven't seen any footage yet, but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that President Obama didn't buy a ticket on a commercial airliner for his trip to Copenhagen today. I'll bet he flew Air Force One to and from Denmark.
For what? To "win" - could be one that Chicagoans will regret winning - the 2016 Olympics for Chicago? Simply amazing. And ridiculous.
Why should the President of the United States care who hosts the Olympic Games?
But what about the flights themselves?
The President has promised to lead America into some form of carbon-neutral, emissions-control future, but he has just dashed all his moral authority on that score. When he lectures Americans about taking "unnecessary trips in their car" they'll think back to today's massive emissions burn on what is clearly his "unnecessary trip". And when he lectures business on the perfectly good substitute for business travel that video conferencing represents, they'll think back to today and how the President of the United States needed to fly his personal 747 7,000 miles to make a sales pitch.
Yup. No one's gonna listen to him on this score now.
