Daily Mail:

Obama accused of 'double standards' as family are pictured skiing... just days after telling Americans to sacrifice their own holidays
By David Gardner
Last updated at 10:35 PM on 20th February 2011

President Obama has been accused of having double standards after appealing for Americans to sacrifice their holidays just days before his wife and children went on a costly skiing trip.

First Lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha are on a ‘private family trip’ to Colorado for Presidents' Day Weekend.

Mrs Obama and Sasha, nine, were pictured waiting in line at the Eagle Bahn gondola to the top of the mountain today.

Nationally lampooned Obama vacation: The First Lady and daughter Sasha, 9, get their tickets scanned at the Eagle-Bahn Gondola before heading up the mountain to ski for the second day Sunday in Vail

Family time: The First Lady puts her arm around her daughter as they head for the gondola at the resort of Vail, Colorado today

The First Lady's cream ski jacket was open, perhaps indicating that temperatures are not as bitter as they are in other parts of the country.

A light snow appeared to be falling on Mrs Obama and her daughter, who herself was clad in fluorescent pink snowboarding pants and a sky blue puff jacket.

Both wore gloves and hats. They were not carrying skis.

The family appear to have flown there on Air Force Two.

They are staying at the upscale Sebastian Hotel on Vail Mountain, where rooms start at $650 a night and range up to more than $2,400 for multi-bedroom suites.

Luxury: The upscale Sebastian Hotel where the family are staying. The trip will cost the taxpayer thousands of dollars in security, at a time when the President is calling for spending restraint

The trip came just days after the President tried to sell his cost-cutting budget to the American people by asking them to stay at home.

‘If you’re a family trying to cut back, you might skip going out to dinner, or you might put off a vacation,’ he said.

While Mr Obama is staying put at the White House, the rest of his family headed to Colorado – rather than visiting slopes closer to Washington in Virginia or Pennsylvania.

Their trip came despite previous criticisms over the family's extravagant vacations, including a trip last summer to Spain.

Mrs Obama also raised eyebrows when she left earlier than her husband for their annual Christmas holiday in Hawaii, incurring additional expenses estimated to be more than $97,000.

Picture postcard: The Sebastian Vail hotel in Colorado, where the Obamas are staying for a ski holiday this weekend. Rooms cost up to $2,400 a night

In August it cost taxpayers an alleged $375,000 for her security detail - and two flights on Air Force One - on a holiday to Spain with her daughter, Sasha, and 40 friends.

Although the Obamas will pay for a portion of the skiing trip, taxpayers will still shoulder many of the costs.

A motorcade of about a dozen vehicles, including at least 15 police officers, travelled from Eagle County Regional Airport to Vail on Friday night when the presidential party arrived.

Family vacation: President Obama with daughters Malia, right, Sasha, and First Lady Michelle Obama. Mr Obama has not joined his wife and daughters on this ski trip

Roads were temporarily closed to make way for the cavalcade, which arrived at the hotel at about 9.30pm.

No public events have been scheduled for the visit.

‘I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,’ said one of the president’s most outspoken critics, conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. ‘He’s got the single largest deficit in the history of the country and he’s trying to tell us that we really cut back here.’

Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden and his wife are spending the holiday weekend in the U.S. in Florida’s Key Largo resort town.

The White House said the Bidens arrived in Key Largo on Thursday night and will remain there until Monday night.

‘The First Lady and several close family friends are chaperoning their children on a ski trip. Personal expenses are being paid for by the Obamas,’ said a spokesman for the President.

Sasha, nine, and Malia, twelve, have been skiing once before, at Liberty Mountain Resort, in Carroll Valley, Pennsylvania, in February last year.

At the time, the First Lady said her family had been thrilled to discover the resort.

'You can go from 60- and 50-degree weather to being on a slope,' she said.

'Not too many places in this country you can do that and still be at the seat of power. It's kind of cool.'