MAJOR REAL ESTATE NEWS – AT 11:57 A.M. ET: President Obama has chosen a post-presidency residence. Looks like he's stepping up from the lowly White House. From The New York Times:
WASHINGTON — President Obama and his family plan to move to a mansion in the upscale Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, a mere two miles from the White House, when he leaves office in January, according to people familiar with his plans.
Mr. Obama, who has said his family will remain in the capital until his daughter Sasha completes high school in 2018, will rent the 8,200-square-foot, nine-bedroom home, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal his plans.
The house — valued around $6 million, according to several real estate websites, with an estimated monthly rent of $22,000 on Zillow — is owned by Joe Lockhart, a former press secretary and senior adviser to Bill Clinton. Mr. Lockhart was until this year the managing director of a communications and political consulting practice he founded, the Glover Park Group, but has moved to Manhattan to become executive vice president for communications for the National Football League.
Mr. Lockhart and his wife, Giovanna Gray Lockhart, an editor at Glamour magazine, would not comment on the matter, referring queries to the White House. Jennifer Friedman, the deputy White House press secretary, also declined to comment on the president’s plans, first reported on Wednesday by Politico.
The move will put the Obamas in one of Washington’s wealthiest ZIP codes, in a secluded precinct backing up to Rock Creek Park that is home to diplomats and a focal point of the capital’s cocktail-party circuit. The home itself is luxurious; photographs posted by Washington Fine Properties, which listed it when it sold in 2014, show spacious rooms with hardwood floors, white marble countertops, his-and-her master bathrooms and a terrace with formal gardens.
COMMENT: Just a man of the people, a community organizer. I understand that he wants his daughter to complete high school where she is, but I do think it's inappropriate for a former president to live in Washington, in effect competing for attention with the incumbent. The Obamas could have arranged a residence for Sasha and lived out of town, even in a real place with real people.
Oh, more Obama inappropriateness: Today he attacked Donald Trump viciously while on a trip to Japan. There is an American tradition that holds that politics stops at the water's edge. Of course, Obama doesn't believe in American traditions, or American principles for that matter. And who am I to question his cultural sensitivities? Why, maybe, among the better people, it's considered perfectly okay for a president to attack a presidential candidate while in another country.
May 26, 2016 |