With a week on Martha’s Vineyard behind him, President Barack Obama was back in Washington on Monday and raring to go — to the golf course.
The president, in khaki pants and a blue polo shirt, headed to the private Army Navy Country Club for an afternoon round with U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, press office staffer Ben Finkenbinder, and trip director Marvin Nicholson. That health care debate? He’ll get to it next week.
“I mean, if he hits Marvin with a golf ball, I guess he’d become more active in health care,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters.
It was hard to miss the Obama family’s glum faces when they returned Sunday evening from their Massachusetts vacation. Walking across the South Lawn toward the White House from Marine One, the usually genial foursome looked uncommonly downcast.
What should have been a restful family time was interrupted by the demands of office, a tropical storm, and the death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. To give the president a bit more rest, the White House scrapped Obama’s public schedule for the first half of this week, and said he would just play through.
On Wednesday, the family heads to Camp David for Labor Day weekend. The decision to extend Obama’s first vacation as president had the administration sounding a little defensive.
“The president did some meetings today that included discussions on health care,” Gibbs said. “I think that just because the president might be doing something else doesn’t mean he’s not focused on health care.”
Since he’s taken office, Obama’s hair is rapidly turning gray — a standard pitfall of the presidency, along with the invariable criticism that comes with R & R.
“He took so much less time than any previous president,” said Stephen Hess, a presidential expert at the Brookings Institution. “The idea of a one-week vacation — it was almost like he was making some kind of a statement.”
Modern presidents frequently take pains to avoid the presumed mistakes of their predecessors.
Former President George W. Bush’s fierce punctuality and insistence on proper attire were generally attributed to former President Bill Clinton’s lax attitude toward both.
In that spirit, Obama’s leeriness of vacation appears in some ways a reaction to Bush’s enthusiasm for it. In eight years, Bush spent all or part of 1,020 days on vacation — or about 2.8 years, according to Mark Knoller of CBS News, unofficial White House statistician.
Obama’s “staycation” this week, intended or not, looks like a politically aware nod to the tough economic times that have trimmed many Americans’ holiday plans this year.
“Sometimes people are happy to see the president away,” Hess said. “Obama probably regretted taking so little time.”
