Presidential sweet

I'm so old-fashioned that I like the occasional historical reference in news stories, even if it takes up a little of the wwwwwh nuts-and-bolts space. I thought I was going to get one when I saw the headline of this story -- "Caesars Palace declares victory: Pres. Obama sleeps there again" -- and read the first paragraph:

Within hours of Pres. Obama's departure from Las Vegas for a sold-out fundraiser for Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Caesars Palace boasted that the president spent the night there.

The obvious connection is to "George Washington slept here," a claim by inns and taverns and B&Bs so widespread that there was a successful play and movie by that name, and there are now websites letting you plan your trip based on George's supposed stopping-off points. But, noooo -- not a word about that. Could someone at USA Today get that close to a great analogy and be clueless about it? The juxtaposition of Washington arrviving at ramshackle inns by horseback and Obama jetting to Vegas to stay in a 22,000 square-foot squite would have been just perfect. Or maybe the folks at the newspaper are far cleverer than I give them credit for -- they left the historical reference implied, confident that their readers would be smart enough to pick up on it.

Oh, well. The point of the story was that Las Vegas has been suffering lately, and some people there put part of the blame on the president, who has said fat cats aren't going to be able to go on Sin City excursions on the taxpayers' dime anymore. Guess this is their way of saying, hey, do what he does, not what he says.

A 22,000 square-foot suite! Man, that's some good pied-a-terre-ing. I've written here before that getting room service at a hotel is one of my favorite self-indulgences. But that usually involves a cookie-cutter little room at a Holiday Inn or Marriott with a TV bolted to the table and toilet paper so cheap that it still has wood chips floating in it. I could take everybody I know to a night in a setup like that and not have to see any of them. Wonder if there's a Motel 6 with a presidential suite?