Mister, calm down.

Obama's 'stupid' jab at Vegas - CNN.com

I heard what he said. And you know what, Mr. Jillette? Lighten up. Your Oasis in the sand has built it's reputation as a land of forbidden fruits. And I'm pretty sure some people actually spend money they shouldn't actually be spending there. I know you have a pretty big stake in this, and I'm sure you earn every dollar of your money. I love your performances. But the reality is, the whole point of your city is excess.

Most of the people who go to your city, though, have some money to burn. And if they don't, do you think it benefits their cities, their town, to go spending money in yours? What we need is a sustainable economy, where John and Jane Q. Public can on occasion head to your city to have a little fun, and not worry about depriving others of what they need.

And Obama's helping on your end. What an off-hand comment that maybe a few thousand people might have heard of, if nobody made a big f'ing deal about it, now has been blown up into a controversy way out of proportion to its actual import. And to what end? To embarrass the guy who's actually trying to ensure that the massive foreclosures and economic troubles that hit Nevada, and Las Vegas in particular, don't happen again anytime soon?

You talk of Obama as being a gamble. I don't think that way. Gambling is a game of chance, where you don't necessarily know how to attain an outcome, where you trust to fortune rather than skill. Gambling is what people did in the suburbs of your city, buying and flipping houses in real estate speculation that drove values sky high. Gambling is what people did on Wall Street, and in the big banks around the country, trying to make money through financial chicanery, rather than productive investments.

Now, I got nothing against gambling as a means of having fun, when people set limits and know when to call it a night. But for too long, folks have been taking up gambling as a way of doing ordinary business, taking the games of chance and pushing them out of the casino. Obama's trying to push those games back in, to make sure that more people can afford to show up at a casino and spend their money on your games, and see your shows.

So don't be concerned about an off-hand comment like that. Most people are not going to go running back to the bank or the travel agent because the President gave them second thoughts. They're going to do it because their mortgages are burdensome, because they've lost their job, because they've taken a cut in pay to keep their job. They're going to do it because their healthcare bills have bankrupted them, or this, that and the other thing. People will stop going to Vegas because they can no longer afford to have fun, not because one politician, even a good one, says, "spend it on college."

You would make more productive use of your time arguing against the BS manner in which this economy's been run, the smoke and mirrors that people have put up to make money they didn't earn, the practices that have left America's workforce more sidelined than it's been in thirty years.

Your comment was pennywise and pound foolish. Support the President in getting this economy back into shape so he can the real money flowing back to your town.