President Obama has every right to a vacation, and he hasn’t been shy about taking them. So Nile Gardiner in The London Telegraph today poses the better question than “should he or shouldn’t he?” Gardiner asks, “Is this an act of presidential Hara Kiri?” And, indeed, it looks like it is.
President Obama, who once showed remarkable political instincts, could not be more tone deaf these days. After taking a disastrous multi-million-dollar — and taxpayer-paid — bus trip to the vote-rich Midwest, Obama is off to a $50,000-per-week resort on Martha’s Vineyard. With his current PR problems? It is cringing to watch. There are thousands of better places he could have gone.
No chance his political handlers stayed mute on this one. A “D” student in campaign school would have warned against it. It must be that Mr. and Mrs. Obama simply insisted. And that spells Hara Kiri to me.
What do you mean by “He hasn’t been shy about taking them?” I think he has had remarkably few holidays, all things being equal. He doesn’t have a huge amount of acreage in Texas and invited the media along to watch him cut brush, then shoo them off to enjoy his downtime in private. He has “rent” at the beach like the rest of us…
Julia-
Isould care less about his vacations, and he has taken a few. Every president since Jefferson has taken flak for that. It’s his PR judgement I question. It was once so good, and now it’s horrible. My only point.
Billy
I think his white house time has been one big party at Barack’s. Awful lot of golfing going on. With the economy still so shaky he could stay in DC and send the kids to Rehoboth Beach or Ocean City Maryland. Just because Bush and Reagan were lazy doesn’t mean it’s OK for the President to be so “in your face” with trendy vacations.
I love how you have your own little icon, Charmian!