SOME people just can't estimate travel costs. President Barack Obama is visiting Asia this week. Conservative bloggers and talk-radio hosts (Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and so on) and tea party darling Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) claim that his trip is costing taxpayers a staggering $200 million a day. (Some also claim that the Navy is dispatching 34 ships and an aircraft carrier to support the mission. More on that later.) The White House says that's not true. Who's right? Google powers, activate! Here are some excerpts from a PolitiFact article debunking the claim:

We think Bachmann and others have a responsibility to back up statistics they cite. And in this case, the backing appears to be one news story, relying on an anonymous state government official in India. People familiar with presidential travel say that estimate is way off, and they question how a government official in India would know anyway. And a report by the independent [Government Accountability Office] backs that up: A trip to India by Clinton, regarded at the time as perhaps the most expensive in history, was estimated to cost $50 million, or $10 million per day. That alone should cause someone to question the $200 million a day figure. In short, we don't see any evidence to back up this statistic. And we rate Bachmann's claim False.

FactCheck.org weighs in, too:

This story has spread rapidly among the president's critics, but there is simply no evidence to support it. And common sense should lead anyone to doubt it. For example, the entire U.S. war effort in Afghanistan currently costs less than that — about $5.7 billion per month, according to the Congressional Research Service, or roughly $190 million per day. How could a peaceful state visit cost more than a war?

And here's Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell on the "34 ships and an aircraft carrier" claim:

Morrell told reporters he was making an exception to the practice of not discussing Presidential security details to shoot down the reports. "I will take the liberty this time of dismissing as absolutely absurd this notion that somehow we were deploying 10 percent of the Navy—some 34 ships and an aircraft carrier—in support of the president's trip to Asia," said Morrell at today's Pentagon briefing. "That's just comical. Nothing close to that is being done."

It's sad that someone even has to debunk these ridiculous claims. Any reasonable person who heard the $200 million a day number should realise that it's off by at least an order of magnitude. Even Bill O'Reilly "knows the figure is nuts." But as New York magazine's perfect headline explains, "Republican Anger Over Cost of Obama's Trip to India Will Not Be Stopped by Facts." Indeed.

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