President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are out on the town Saturday, making an unscheduled and unannounced trip to New York for dinner and a Broadway show.

The First Couple flew up to New York Saturday afternoon – using a small Gulfstream 500 and wisely forgoing the big 747 that set off such a brouhaha in Manhattan when it flew low over the island a few weeks ago with a fighter jet on its tail, all for an Air Force One publicity photo.

"I am taking my wife to New York City because I promised her during the campaign that I would take her to a Broadway show after it was all finished,” Obama said in a statement.

They headed first toward the Blue Hill restaurant on Washington Place, then were planning to catch “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” at the Belasco Theater.

As they did, the Republican National Committee went on the attack, ripping them for going to a play while crises loom.

“As President Obama prepares to wing into Manhattan’s theater district on Air Force One to take in a Broadway show, GM is preparing to file bankruptcy and families across America continue to struggle to pay their bills,” RNC spokeswoman Gail Gitcho said.

Another release noted the nation’s unemployment rate is expected to hit 9.2 percent when new figures are released next week.

The RNC went on to compare the Obama’s trip to New York to the tale about former President Bill Clinton allegedly tying up air traffic in Los Angeles while getting a haircut on Air Force One. “Americans Have Seen This Show Before,” the RNC headlined.

Finally, the Republican Party noted that Obama made a joke at the recent White House Correspondents Association dinner about the Manhattan flyover of the 747 often used as Air Force One. “Obama May Joke About Air Force One Joyrides,” the RNC said.

(It did not mention former President George W. Bush’s joke at the Radio and Television  Correspondents Association dinner several years ago about the fact that there weren’t weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as he had said when he invaded the country.)

The RNC attack came just weeks after RNC Chairman Michael Steele vowed not to get personal in party criticisms of Obama.

“This is not about personalities,” he said in a speech on May 19 in suburban Washington.

“We're going to challenge those policies that we believe are wrong, and we're going to do so without apology and without a second thought.

“But there's a very important distinction I want to make here. We are going to take this president on with class. We're going to take this president on with dignity. This will be a very sharp and, I think, marked contrast to the shabby and classes way that the Democrats on the far left spoke of and treated President Bush over the last eight years.”