Another Right Wing Tempest in a Teacup

President Obama and his family are spending a few days in Maine this week.  They will be touring the area and taking a few days off after the President helped shepherd needed unemployment benefit extensions through the Congress, getting historic financial reform passed, and receiving the PMs of Israel and the UK.

But, according to the right wingers, that's not the real story.  Let's take them one at a time.....

Fox Nation:  Obama Family Dog Flies on His Own Private Plane

Michelle Malkin:  Just Plane Crazy: Obama's Dog Flies to Vacation

Free Republic: Obama's Dog Gets Own Plane on Vacation Trip

Left Coast Rebel:  Bad Decisions Will Dog Obama

Gee, wonder what they are all talking about?  Turns out, it's this blurb from one of the local paper's coverage of the President's arrival:

Arriving in a small jet before the Obamas was the first dog, Bo, a Portuguese water dog given as a present by the late U.S. Sen Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.; and the president's personal aide Reggie Love, who chatted with Baldacci.

Nothing there seems amiss unless one thinks like a right winger, which is to read of events without bothering to include context or nuance.  In this case, because the article doesn't bother to point out other people were on the plane, the right wingers just assume the plane held only Bo and Reggie Love.

The paper was slammed with comments and questions about the Air Force Bo jet and had to eventually issue a clarification, for the sake of the misconstruing right wingers:

Today's story about the arrival of the Obamas said the Obama's dog and one aide arrived on a small jet before the First Family, but there were other occupants on the plane, including several other staffers. The presidential party took two small jets to the Hancock County-Bar Harbor Airport in Trenton because the airport was too small to accommodate the president's usual jet.

It's pretty sad and telling when newspapers, which write to a 7th grade reading level anyway by design, have to further dumb down the text in order to allay the howls of righteous indignation coming from an illiterate attempt at reading.

The above "Left Coast Rebel" in particular deals with the clarification dishonestly by jumping on the fact that *gasp* the President travels with an entourage, like every President before him.  Suddenly, the idea that our President must be ready to conduct the nation's business at any time, from any where and continues to receive news and updates regardless of where he is or what he is doing is lost in the right winger's mindless attempt at indictment falling short.

*UPDATE*

Snopes has now thankfully sorted out the facts as well.

Bo flew to Maine in a different plane than the rest of the First Family not because he was part of a special canine-only flight, but because the local airport (Hancock County-Bar Harbor Airport in Trenton, Maine) was too small to accommodate theBoeing 747-200B in which the President usually travels. Therefore, the Obamas flew to Maine in a Gulfstream GIII/G3 jet (which seats six to nineteen passengers), while Bo was loaded onto an earlier flight which carried a contingent of presidential aides and staff members.