Wonder how the good folks in Las Vegas who work long, hard hours to make a living, put food on their tables, pay their bills, and send their kids to college feel about a President who makes reckless and careless comments like this:

President Barack Obama took another dig at Las Vegas at his New Hampshire town hall Tuesday after similar remarks got him into hot water last year.

Obama said that people should not “blow a bunch of cash in Vegas” during a tough recession. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman called for Obama to apologize after he made comparable comments last February.

“When times are tough, you tighten your belts,” he said at the forum.” You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash in Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.”

Now, people who read this blog know I’m no fan – by any stretch of the imagination – of President Obama. I don’t like him personally, and frankly the sound of his voice continually lecturing me about who’s good in America (i.e., the government) and who’s bad (the banks, the insurance companies, energy producers, Wall Street, Republicans and conservatives, etc. etc.) irritates the hell out of me.

It’s not that I want to feel that way. I respect the office of President of the United States and truly want to like and respect this one. I never liked Jimmy Carter (after voting for him!), but I respected him. I even liked and respected (at least until you-know-what) Bill Clinton. And while I disagreed with George W. Bush on Iraq and found his Katrina response sorely wanting, at no point over the course of these men’s presidencies that I felt they wanted anything but the best for America and its people.

I don’t fell that way about Barack Obama; in fact, it’s just the opposite.

At times I do wonder if he has the interests of this country and its people at heart. I’m sure deep down he has his own ideas as to what America should be, but I’m increasingly doubtful that the majority of people in this country outside of the East/West coast elites, Beltway intellectuals, and radical socialists he has associated himself with all his life) share those ideas or ideals.

After all, at a time when the economy is struggling mightily (something he personally has had a major hand in, BTW), you would think the President would, rather than dissing cottage industries like corporate business or pleasure travel to economically hard-hit places like Las Vegas, actually talk up these industries and vacation destinations to get people to spread their money around if they have it in their power to do so. But it just goes to show how out of touch he is with average Americans – you know, the same ones who put him into office on his fraudulent “hope and change” mantra.

What I come away with when someone like Barack Obama says such stupid and reckless things is this: 1) he hasn’t a clue as to how average people live and work in the private sector, far away from the clutches of government/union employment, 2) he doesn’t fully understand yet that there’s a vast difference between off-hand comments you might make as some silver-spooned U.S. Senator and as President of the United States, where you need to be really careful about what you say because words have meaning, and 3) he just can’t help himself from lecturing people about how they should live their lives, as if we were all just a bunch of $#@% stupid peasants.

One final note: this President talks about what “belt tightening” ought to mean to us common folk; methinks he ought to take a lesson from his own words when it comes to his bloated, irresponsible 2010 budget. A proposal that, if enacted to the letter (which it won’t be), would be devastating to this country’s ecomonic future.

But that’s what I believe this President, given his radical socialist upbringing has his heart set on doing. The President’s comments today are not only stupid, but show a cluelessness and recklessness that reveals someone not just in way over his head, but someone not worthy of the office he has been elected to.

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Pool temp: 54 degrees