Dan Calabrese

Here’s a dilemma. President Obama says something that makes Harry Reid mad. That means one of them has to be right, or at least less wrong than the other.

In what apparently is becoming a bit of a habit, the president angered the good citizens of Las Vegas by using them as an example of what not to do when you’re trying to be responsible with your money.

The home of frugality.

Now, it may very well be that the president is responsible with his own money. What he does with everyone else’s is another story entirely.

But he managed to get all of Nevada aghast by saying the following: “When times are tough, you tighten your belts. You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.”

You don’t try to create a massive new entitlement when the three you already have are causing you to careen toward bankruptcy. Oh. Sorry. I digress.

For his statement, for which he actually (and quickly) apologized, the president earned himself the angry enmity of Nevada’s esteemed Sen. Reid, as well as the mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman (that’s not the guy from The Six Million Dollar Man, dummies) and every other Vegas luminary you can think of.

I don’t know that Wayne Newton has weighed in yet, but it’s only a matter of time. And one can only imagine if Frank Sinatra were still alive.

And of course, the national media love Obama, but they love a so-called “gaffe” even more, so they’re all over the story of Obama’s political tone-deafness in skewering a state where a) a key Democratic senator is in trouble; and b) the president’s own prospects of a repeat electoral victory in 2012 are far from a sure thing.

Conservative activists everywhere are falling all over themselves with delight over the president’s latest foot-in-mouth faux pas.

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I have a question. Is what Obama said wrong? Is it a good idea to blow money in Vegas when you’re trying to save for college? Because, politically inept though the statement may have been, I’m having a hard time finding anything substantively wrong with it.

Given his track record as president, I wouldn’t choose Obama as my fiscal responsibility role model, but in this case, what he said was completely correct.

What, then, is the reason for jumping all over him? I can think of three possibilities:

1. Substance has ceased to matter in America, and certainly in Washington. Everything is politics. It doesn’t matter if what you say is true. It only matters if it’s politically astute. And since laying out a simple truth – Vegas is not the place to be when pennies are at a premium for you – may lose Obama more votes than it will gain him, he has committed a mortal sin by uttering the statement. Truth be damned.

2. Everything Obama says is wrong because Obama says it. Activists of a certain stripe, represent! You know who you are. You’re the same people who were having a cow the other day because the White House released a photo of Obama with his feet up on the Resolute Desk. If you notice Obama breathing, you’ll stop doing so, because breathing would make you a socialist.

3. People don’t like it pointed out that Vegas is one big den of iniquity because they like to go there and join in the fun.

The life of a high roller, eh, Mr. President? Ah well, you offered good advice if anyone wants to listen.  After all, going to Vegas when you’re hurting for cash is as dumb as, oh, say, being buried deeply in debt and thinking the answer is to borrow even more.

Good thing you know the difference, sir.

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