Apparently scaling back the party to just family and close friends, all of whom are vaccinated, isn’t good enough for the GOP.
When the news emerged this week that Barack Obama was throwing himself a giant 60th birthday party on Martha’s Vineyard with a guest list reportedly approaching 500, it didn’t look great. Was it as bad as Donald Trump holding numerous super-spreader events sans masks or social distancing, at a time when vaccines weren’t available? Obviously not. As bad as the elected officials seemingly doing everything in their power to cause people to get infected with COVID-19? Again, no. Obama, a responsible individual who believes in science, was holding the party outdoors, asking guests to be vaccinated, and not allowing anyone to enter the property without proof of a negative test, submitted to a COVID coordinator overseeing the health aspect of the whole thing.
Appearing on Fox News this morning, Senator John Kennedy—who said in October that COVID-19 was “not nearly as lethal as the experts told us it was going to be”—insisted it’s not enough for Obama to scale back the party—he must cancel it altogether and have “a beer and a personal-pan pizza at home with his wife.”
He also claimed, entirely seriously, that “The single biggest thing that has undermined our efforts to make the American people understand we are in a fourth wave is President Obama’s decision to hold a birthday bash.“ The single biggest! Not the conservatives spreading vaccine misinformation, or the Republican governors claiming everything is hunky-dory as their states become the worst place in the country for COVID-19, but Obama’s decision to hold a birthday party, to which he has since disinvited hundreds of people. Guy doesn’t deserve gifts or Facebook well-wishes. In fact, he’s on a birthday time-out until he stops and thinks about what he’s done.
Source: Vanity Fair