Obama is Canceling Controversial 60th Birthday Bash: New York Times

It appears that former President Barack Obama will be celebrating his 60th birthday with a much smaller affair than had been planned. According to The New York Times, the 44th president is canceling the massive birthday party he’d plan to host at his Martha’s Vineyard home due to public health concerns surrounding the delta variant of Covid-19.

The former president has reportedly invited 500 guests and 200 party workers — including a “Covid Coordinator” and is requiring all attendees to prove that they have been vaccinated and have had a recent negative test for the potentially deadly contagion. But the party has now been “significantly” scaled back according to Hannah Hankins, a spokesman for Obama which was reported by the NY Times.

Anne Karni reports for the NY Times:

The party plans had been months in the making and many invitees had already arrived on Martha’s Vineyard when former President Barack Obama belatedly announced he was canceling his huge 60th birthday bash scheduled for Saturday.

“Due to the new spread of the Delta variant over the past week, the President and Mrs. Obama have decided to significantly scale back the event to include only family and close friends,” Hannah Hankins, a spokeswoman for the former president, said in a statement Wednesday morning. “He’s appreciative of others sending their birthday wishes from afar and looks forward to seeing people soon.”

Earlier in the week,  the Obama party had been derided by conservative media as evidence of a double standard or rank hypocrisy among liberal elites, and the New York Post cover was repeatedly cited which blared “It’s My Party and I’ll Defy if I Want To” suggesting that the 44th president is defying CDC guidelines by proceeding with the party.

“They’ve been concerned about the virus from the beginning, asking invited guests if they had been vaccinated, requesting that they get a test proximate to the event,” David Axelrod told the NY Times, adding, “But when this was planned, the situation was quite different. So they responded to the changing circumstances.”

While the Director of the NIH Francis Collins said recently that he felt more comfortable with small gatherings of only seven or eight people, he was referencing indoor events. “If you’re talking about a small party like I might have at my house for six or eight people who are all fully vaccinated, I do not believe, at this point, we need to put masks on to be next to each other,” he told Jake Tapper on Monday.

Martha’s Vineyard is currently not a hot spot, so the recent CDC guidance of wearing masks indoors does not apply. Obama’s party is going to be held outdoors so the guidance of mask-wearing wouldn’t even apply apart from party-goers perhaps going inside for a bathroom break.

Update: Karni appeared on CNN’s New Day, the video of which has been added to the post, which you can watch above, via CNN.