Updated

By Laura Ingraham

Yesterday the Obama administration announced that the President would cut short his Hawaiian holiday to make one more attempt to work out a deal to avert the so-called fiscal cliff.

In unison, his pals in the news media repeated this White House talking point.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Obama cutting short his vacation in Hawaii, heading back now to Washington. That will happen tonight to work on the fiscal cliff deal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The looming fiscal cliff is forcing President Obama to cut short his Christmas vacation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Obama is cutting short his Christmas vacation. He is leaving Hawaii tonight so that he can be back in Washington when Congress reconvenes tomorrow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: So we should believe that by leaving his island enclave that the President was making some big sacrifice for the country? I'm thinking Washington, crossing the Delaware on a bitter Christmas night 1776 before going on to defeat the British in two major battles, that's sacrifice.

I, for one, never understood how in good conscience any of these politicians would think about leaving town with so much riding on this cliff hanger? Shouldn't they get their work done before they leave town for a break? That's what's expected for most working Americans but then again Washington politicians have rules of their own.

People whose salaries that we pay are called public servants. Meaning they serve us. Not the other way around. We don't work to make their lives better. They are supposed to work to make ours better. The operative word here being "work."

So much doesn't seem to be working though at all inside the Beltway. Posturing and puffery replace policy and principle. How often did the fiscal cliff even come up during the presidential debate? Presumably we could have worked on this problem before now with just a few days left in the year. No wonder so many people are tuning out of politics all together these days because it always seems to be a zero sum gain with the taxpayers left holding the bag. They're the ones forced to turn over more of their hard earned money to a system that seems utterly incapable of proper management.

So thanks, Mr. President, for coming back to Washington. Let's hope it's for real work not just for the show of it. The perpetual razzle-dazzle as I like to call it. And by the way First Lady and the Obama daughters, lucky them, they are staying on the island, and that's estimated to cost the taxpayers as much as $200,000. Apparently President Obama's statement that we're all needing to sacrifice for the greater good only goes so far.

And that's "The Memo."