It is not the matter of who needs or takes a vacation, it is the matter that tax payers are footing the bill. It is also a problem when someone controls the media and what they can publish. It is a problem when the US has 9 percent of its people out of work and our tax dollars are not going to fund trips that are now in the millions of dollars for whomever is in the White House.
Criticism of p**********l vacations is almost as old as the presidency itself, said Brendan Doherty, a political scientist at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Indeed, read on: President Dwight Eisenhower interrupted his vacation in Newport, Rhode Island, after mobs of segregationists prevented nine black students from attending Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. After a meeting with Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus in Rhode Island failed to stem the crisis, Eisenhower raced back to Washington to explain in a televised address his decision to dispatch federal troops. I could have spoken from Rhode Island, where I have been staying recently, but I felt that, in speaking from the house of Lincoln, of Jackson and of Wilson, my words would more clearly convey both the sadness I feel in the action I was compelled today to take and the firmness with which I intend to pursue this course, Eisenhower said in his Sept. 24, 1957, speech from the White House.
President Jimmy Carter encountered a k**ler rabbit during a 1979 fishing trip that became a symbolic precursor of his 1980 re-e******n defeat. While out on a pond in Georgia, Carter beat back a swimming rabbit with his paddle, he later recounted to aides. The story carried the headline in the Washington Post, President Attacked By Rabbit, that was quickly used by Carters opponents as a metaphor for a hapless and weakened presidency.
Huge Mistake
In 2005, Bush ended a month-long vacation at his ranch two days early to survey -- from the sky on Air Force One -- the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, after facing criticism for remaining away while New Orleans flooded. Bush later said that observing the damage from the air was a huge mistake since it made him look detached and uncaring.
Four years later, Obama struggled to manage the political fallout from his vacation in Hawaii when a 23-year-old Nigerian attempted to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas Day.
White House aides said they didn't anticipate news during Obamas nine-day stay in Massachusetts, scheduling no public appearances for him. Obama ended speculation that he might again announce his choice for a Fed chairman during his holiday, telling reporters in an Aug. 9 news conference that he would select Bernankes successor in the fall.
The Vineyard is a familiar and sentimental spot for the president, who made his first visit in 2004, shortly after his national debut at that years Democratic National Convention. Oak Bluffs, a historically black area on the northern part of the island, includes a vacation home owned by longtime senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.
Atlantic View
This year, the president, first lady Michelle Obama, and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, are rented a $7.6 million, 5,000-square-foot modernist estate with an infinity pool, half basketball court, gym and tennis court, according to a person familiar with the arrangements.
The property, on the islands south shore, features floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
Obamas first outing was to the Farm Neck Golf Club, where vacationers lined a road to spot the president in a round of golf with aide Marvin Nicholson, White House chief Sam Kass, and former UBS Americas Chairman Robert Wolf. Wolf, now a Wall Street consultant, has advised the president on financial legislation and raised more than $500,000 for his re-e******n.
Golf Days
According to a Boston Globe analysis of White House pool reports, Obama has spent a total of 583 hours on the island -- including 56 hours on the links -- not counting this years visit.
His low-key style, mostly spending time with family and friends, marks a contrast to the Vineyards last p**********l vacationer, Bill Clinton, who attended parties hosted by celebrities such as actors Ted Danson and Sylvester Stallone.
Unlike Clinton, who relied on friends and donors to lend him their homes, Obama rents his vacation estate. That makes him different from most recent presidents, according to historians.
John F. Kennedy returned to his family home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, while George H.W. Bush had a compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. Richard Nixon had his Florida White House in Key Biscayne and his Western White House in San Clemente, California.
Where presidents go on vacation says something about where they define their roots -- to the extent that they have them, said John Kenneth White, a p**********l scholar and professor of politics at Catholic University in Washington.
Consulting Pollster
While presidents may want to get away from it all and can check out of the White House, they can never really leave.
Regardless of the place or the president, politics is paramount. In 1995, Clinton passed up his annual trip to the Vineyard for a 17-day vacation in Jackson, Wyoming, after his pollster, Dick Morris, insisted that hiking and camping would help him win swing v**ers heading into a re-e******n campaign. Clinton, Morris wrote in his memoir, unhappily went, and spent as much time as possible on the golf course.
Stupid Idea
P**********l vacations have long been fraught with symbolism. Like Bush, Ronald Reagan valued spending time at his ranch, in Santa Barbara, California, reveling in the rustic, cowboy image of a president chopping wood and riding horses.
The close to 350 days he spent at Rancho del Cielo, known as his Western White House, also contributed to the perception that he was disconnected from the management of his administration, said Doherty, an expert in p**********l travel.
Even if a president can be just as effective on the road, theres a powerful perception that he needs to be in Washington attending to the duties of his job, said Doherty.
After Soviet fighter planes shot down a Korean Airlines flight in 1983, k*****g 269 people, including 62 Americans, Reagans deputy chief of staff, Michael Deaver tracked the president down in the tack barn, where he saddled his horses at the ranch, to tell him he needed to head back to Washington.
Dammit, Im the president whether Im in California or the Oval Office, Reagan replied, Deaver recounted in his book, A Different Drummer. Its a stupid idea.
Reagan went anyway, returning to Washington for a speech denouncing the Soviet Unions aggression.
I can go futher back in history for more examples if you would like to read them.
Just a point, should Obama's vacations not be criticized based on the fact that he is half black?
MarvinSussman wrote:
Why do darkies need a vacation? Bring back s***ery!