My feeling about this is that if the White House thinks the trip is worth the horrible optics it’s generating, then hey — have at it. Sure, it looks terrible to be taking a glamorous, expensive vacation overseas while the latest stage of unemployment doom is descending, and sure, it makes The One’s class warfare schtick even more ridiculous than it usually is, but he and Axelrod and Plouffe and Rahm are big boys. If they think R&R for Michelle on a cordoned-off Spanish beach is worth having articles like this circulating in major papers three months before the midterms, fine with me. As for the taxpayer expense for security, transportation, etc, (a) those same expenses would be incurred to some (lesser) extent during a U.S. vacation and (b) given the aortic hemorrhaging that is our national debt, what’s a little vacation paper cut here and there? If we’re headed for Greece-style economic collapse down the road, then darn it, let’s at least let FLOTUS see Majorca before the roof starts caving in.

Exit question: A six-mile helicopter ride?