credit: m.theepochtimes.com
President Barack Obama is getting flak for being on vacation and playing golf while the world is, seemingly, going to hell in a hand basket. It’s predictable. I can recall the same complaints about every president in my lifetime. Such petty sniping is par for the course in politics. I was going to expound further on this, but I found an article from the Washington Post that says it better than I could. Link at the end of this post.
I will however add a postscript from my own observations. Taking time off from a normal busy activities has proven valuable, even in little bits. I’ve had some of my best ideas while shaving in the mornings, letting my mind range over things like finances, travel and relationships. I usually end with inhaling the shaving soap fragrance through the towel at the end while letting my mind go blank, a sort of aroma therapy. (Am I nuts, or do other people do this?)
Listening to pod-casts while at our daily workouts at the Y exercises the mind. And a little nap in the afternoon is wonderfully refreshing. The presidency is a pressure-cooker, wherever he goes, and if he can clear his mind on the golf course, I say good for him. Scott Farris of the Washington Post would agree.
Still Skeptical After All These Years 
The video and text of the WP article were very good. This is such an easy issue for people to criticize. It isn’t warranted.
Thanks for the link and post, Jim.
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Thanks for stopping by, Jim.
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You’d think anyone who’d ever worked under any pressure at all would appreciate the value of depressurizing. And in this day and age, the president is no more out of touch in Martha’s Vineyard than he would be in his office. I’m sure most of the critics understand this perfectly well; they’re just exploiting any opening, as they always do. Admittedly, the optics aren’t good in a time of crisis, but there’s no changing that. The man’s head would explode if he never left Washington.
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I agree, PT. Just a change of scene and some new faces can boost one’s morale.
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Well done, Jim, as usual.
I’m puzzled about one thing. Your post, at the end of the post but before the comment section, has “Related articles” links.
One says,
Normally Obama’s vacation critics are wrong. This time, they’re right.
And a link to story in The Week.
The other says,
1,461 days of summer: Obama’s endless second-term vacation.
With a link to Watchdog.org
I was not familiar with Watchdog.org so I looked around. The editorial slant seems atilt to the right, and I’d say the opinions expressed would, for the most part, not comport with yours, Jim.
Since we use AdBlock on all three of the computers in our house, we don’t see any ads. So that makes me wonder whether WordPress is doing this, using our blogs to promote politics we may not agree with. I wonder if I have ads, and “related articles” that I am not aware of, on my own blog.
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I recognized the tenor of the articles from their titles when I added them. Frankly, I didn’t read them myself but wordpress made them available and I thought, in the interest of openness, that they might make an interesting counterpoint. You know, like in debates, and it just might help in evaluating sources of opinion.
I wonder how many readers would have been as thorough as you to notice this. Good for you, Helen.
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OK, now I’ve read the article in The Week This time (the critics) are right. The author’s point is that he should have stayed in the Oval Office to demonstrate gravitas. Nobody can deny that leadership is an important aspect of the job and that image is important. But I say, every president is human and needs to decompress. By all accounts, Obama takes his job very seriously. I note:
1. He has gotten noticeably gray in the past 6 years.
2. He is a disciplined guy who has avoided excesses like smoking (reformed addict) and obesity.
3. Just after ordering the crucial and dangerous mission to get Ben Laden, he attended the annual W.H. correspondents’ dinner and didn’t let on.
He’s like the duck on the pond, I think – calmly sailing along while paddling furiously under the surface. I think he’s a better president than he is a politician. That surely can’t be too bad a thing.
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Jim: Good and timely article. But history is sometimes a poor teacher; every administration receives this same criticism, yet the critics can’t seem to remember their criticism when their own team is in office. Witness Axelrod’s mea culpa of late. And remember, even the lowliest buck private gets a thirty-day paid vacation every year. Bud
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Very true, Bud. Mollie reminds me, though, that I would save the leave days up and use them mostly during transfers between stations. She’s right. 😉
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Pingback: Vacations
Thanks for the links. Complaints about presidential vacations is a time-honored tradition by the partisans … who, unfortunately, use attacks as a response for when they were defensive.
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Whenever a right winger complains that Obama spends too much time relaxing on vacation, I ask, “would you rather have him in the Oval Office destroying America 24/7, or go golfing?”
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Jeez, X, that’s pretty snarky. Wouldn’t it be better to say, “If your Congress Creature’s would do their job and get some stuff done, maybe Obama would have more productive things to do. Especially when Congress is on their own 5-weekvacation and accusing the president of “doing nothing” about ISIS. And that’s after suing him for being too aggressive with Executive Orders.”
Jeez.
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But that’s logical, and it assumes that these people actually want Congress to pass something that Obama would be willing to sign into law. Because holding 50 pointless votes to repeal Obamacare certainly doesn’t fit the definition of productive.
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That’s right. Ideology is killing our government.
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