Andrea Tantaros, a Republican party strategist, caricatured the First Lady as a “modern-day Marie Antoinette” in a scathing New York newspaper column. Some among a flurry of newspaper and television reports, have estimated the cost to the American taxpayer of her entourage’s trip at $375,000, drawing criticism as much of the US is mired in economic gloom.
Her stay at the lavish Villa Padierna in the hills above Marbella – where rooms cost up to $2,000 a night – has coincided with the news that the US lost 131,000 jobs last month, significantly more than expected.
President Barack Obama struggled to put a positive gloss on the numbers. “The road to recovery doesn’t follow a straight line,” he acknowledged on Friday.
But the blanket coverage of his wife’s five-star Mediterranean break – including private viewings of the Alhambra palace in Granada and an expected lunch with the Spanish royal family on Majorca today – could not have contrasted more sharply with the bad economic news being battled by the President.
Full Story: Michelle Obama criticised over expense of Spain trip – Telegraph