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Fuzzy Math Dogs Obama’s Asia Trip.
By Jonathan Weisman
As if Tuesday’s shellacking wasn’t enough, President Barack Obama is getting pilloried by the right on the cost of his 10-day trip to Asia, with outlandish hyperventilation going directly from suspect Indian media reports to conservative U.S. media outlets and commentators without a pause for fact-checking.

Photo by Yuri Gripas-pool/Getty Images
First, the Press Trust of India reported that Mr. Obama’s entourage would be spending $200 million a day for two days in India, a claim that was quickly repeated last night by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R., Minn.) on CNN. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said, “The numbers reported in this article have no basis in reality,” and are “wildly inflated,” but “due to security concerns,” he would not offer an alternative price tag.
Snopes.com, a website devoted to myth busting, noted that even if the Indian press has correctly reported the size of the president’s entourage – 3,000 – the cost would work out to $66,000 per person per day, “a figure that stretches credulity to the breaking point.” Factcheck.org noted that the entire war in Afghanistan costs $190 million a day.
But the report is demonstrably incorrect. It says the White House had blocked off the entire Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai – it hasn’t – and that the press traveling with Mr. Obama will be staying there. We won’t. Besides, the press pays its own way at considerable cost to the media outlets, not the U.S. taxpayer.
Now a new rumor has emerged courtesy of India’s NDTV. Mr. Obama, the outlet says, “will be protected by a fleet of 34 warships, including an aircraft carrier, which will patrol the sea lanes off the Mumbai coast.” The White House called that ridiculous. But on the conservative Drudge Report website, it’s on the home page – in huge type.