Barack Obama's Trip to India Is Not Going to Cost $200 Million a Day
President Obama's upcoming trip to India won't cost $200 million a day, and "34 warships" aren't accompanying him to the subcontinent. But it doesn't matter! It's already the hot new right-wing anti-Obama rumor.
If you haven't received any emails from your Uncle Rick lately, you may not be up on the latest in "weird shit that conservatives believe," which is too bad, because this latest one is a doozy: Did you know that President Obama's trip to India will cost $200 million dollars per day, and that he'll rent out 870 rooms and take 3,000 people with him, and he'll have an entourage of 34 "warships" (No, really! Warships!) and eat a billion sandwiches and get room service every night and ride a horse with eight legs and his dad will buy him a race car, all at the taxpayer's expense?
Okay, so, those last four aren't actually part of the rumor, but the first four are, as repeated by completely insane Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann on CNN's AC 360 on Wednesday night. And, of course, by the Drudge Report, on its front page, today. And, then, again, today in the White House briefing room, by funny old WorldNet Daily White House correspondent Les Kinsolving—as you can see in the following, highly recommended video:
The thing is though, none of it is true. These tidbits all seem to come from anonymously-sourced articles in the Indian press, and you don't really need access to the White House's secret plans to figure out how wrong they are. For example: $200 million a day is more than the War in Afghanistan costs, as FactCheck.org points out. Somehow it seems unlikely that the trip to India will cost that much. But, hey, why let any of that stop you?
