While people suffer, Obamas party

That's the headline coming from New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor's book "The Obamas."

The secretive party came in the fall of 2009, a time when the American people suffered mightily through the recession (and still do). You can read more by following this link to a White House that fiddles while the economy burns. Or, so the book suggests.

No matter what spin you try to put on this -- pro or con President Obama -- you can bet the characters from this strange and most unwise party will come back to haunt the Obamas in the general election. The White House is scrambling to pretend there's "nothing to see here," it was all public, and normal.

But at the time the extent of the party and optics of the whole deal were covered up. And for good reason. This was bad judgment in the extreme.