[Update 10am November 5] It is finally coming out that the $200 million pricetag is "wildly inflated, " says the White House and that the original press release that communicated these numbers was based solely on an unverified statement by an Indian provincial official. Anderson Cooper on CNN delves into the report and states that the White House is not releasing numbers for security reasons, however, in the 90s, President Clinton's visited 6 African countries to the tune of $5 million per day (inflation adjusted), so one way to guesstimate the cost of this India trip is to extrapolate from the cost of Clinton's trip. Remember, at the end of the day, we are all still guessing at the number until it is officially released.
********
We hope you aren't planning on traveling to Mumbai, India this weekend, as President Obama is planning to visit the city for a whopping 24 hours, during which time Mumbai air space will be shut down for periods and the city will be on heavy alert. In fact, with all the needed security, the accommodations and the full media and tactical teams that are accompanying the prez, the cost of Obama's little daytrip to india has the heart attack pricetag of $200 million dollars [new reports show that this figure is a guess made by an Indian official, see above].
That makes the Maldives 5-star bungalow vacations of celebs look like child's play and in effect, it is. $200 million is getting Obama a suite at the renowned Taj Hotel, plus his usual Air Force One flight and all of the greased palms that it requires to make the state visit go over without incident. Barack is heading to Mumbai to talk economic foreign relations. ]]>
