CNN - Obama vacation brings rest, relaxation and rebuke(from GOBP)

President Obama and his family arrived Friday for a weekend getaway in Maine, but along with a little rest and relaxation comes criticism that the president is taking it easy with the Gulf of Mexico oil crisis in a critical phase.

The Obamas plan to spend the weekend on Mount Desert Island, home of Acadia National Park. The trip marks the president's third weekend vacation since the oil disaster began in April.

The Republican National Committee launched a website blasting what it considers Obama's "leisure activities or missteps" during the oil disaster, like playing golf, attending concerts and vacationing in Asheville, North Carolina; Chicago, Illinois; and now Maine.

Obama has also faced criticism for scheduling a trip up north, instead of vacationing in the Gulf, as he advised other Americans to do.

"Presidents are certainly entitled to vacation, just like everybody else, but there is a fine line as to when presidents should do it, what they should and where they should do it," said Brad Blakeman, a former member of President George W. Bush's senior staff and the deputy assistant for appointments and scheduling.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/07/16/obama.vacation/index.html?video=true?video=true&hpt=T1

GOBP needs to STFU. Dems should remind them that Bush spent 33% of his presidency on friggin' vacation including the time of the 8/6
Presidential Daily Brief and Katrina when again he was pre-warned. And CNN needs to not allow the GOBP to dictate the story.

Oh and they are also tracking his golf outings. Probably spying on the basketball court as well.

President Barack Obama has played a remarkable 41 rounds of golf since becoming president, easily outpacing his predecessor and possibly damaging his ability to portray himself in 2012 as a populist advocate of average folks.

With the excursions lasting on average at least five hours, the president has devoted a total of more than 200 hours to golf, not counting time spent on the White House putting green. That’s the equivalent of twenty five eight-hour work days, or five work weeks spent smacking golf balls.

Since the April 20 explosion that killed 11 rig workers and started the Gulf oil spill, Obama has teed up seven times, according to White House Dossier’s count. This includes back to back sessions April 23 and 24 while on vacation at the Grove Park Resort & Spa in Asheville, NC, just days after the crisis began.

Obama’s focus on golf borders on obsession. Startled reporters follow him out to the course in the motorcade in the broiling Washington heat and then wait in the air conditioning while he puts in 18 holes. Rarely does he play any less.


http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2010/07/16/obama-played-41-rounds-golf-president/

occupied space, vacantly.

CBS's Mark Knoller, who keeps track of presidents' comings and goings, calculated that Bush spent all or part of 977 days at Camp David or in Texas during his two terms.

From OP Story.

that I thought not worthy of posting, but if anyone wants to read it, here it is:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/17/us/politics/17memo.html?_r=1&hp

for now.

Obama spent 65 days.

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-politics/20100715/US.Obama/

occur during that time? Just 9/11. That's all. :eyes: That certainly didn't seem to slow his vaca's down.

This is a really pathetic line of attack by Republicans. Obama's taken 3 long weekends since April!!! Of course, one of those weekends included a trip to the Gulf (the weekend they went back to Chicago).

I love their constant cognitive dissonance arguments against Obama:

Obama is a slacker, on vacation all the time vs Obama is doing too much, overloading the circuits, changing everything, strangling business, blah, blah, blah.

Obama is a wimp, a wuss, an apologist vs Obama is a thug, a dictator, Hitler.

and wring his hands and say oh no oh no.....besides he is close enough to DC, not like he was on a ranch the other side of Texas, so that if something happened he could hop the helicopter and be in the white house in an hour.

At least, that is the way the right wing nuts see it. They have to have something to whine about every day.

as he advised other Americans to do." MSNBC was asking every official in LA if THEY were disappointed that the Obamas were vacationing in Maine and not down in LA, and they ALL said something to the effect of, "No offense to the Obamas, but we do NOT need all the traffic they'd cause, so I hope they have a great vacation in Maine."

republikkklans have to just STFU. hell, W would have taken at least 12 weeks off already.

The White House is the world's most lavish prison (if Harry Truman is to be believed), and with the amount of crap Obama's dealt with he deserves a vacation. Fuck the GOP and their impotent whining.

Trouble is millions of people can't take a vacation this year, last year, and probably next year. That's what happens when you have no job, the economy is still sucking, and government efforts to help us out of this mess are virtually non-existent.

I mean, really, they care what the Obamas do on the weekend? The weekend after FinReg passes and the well is finally (well, hopefully) capped? I suppose it's the regular mendacity, but I'd like to know where the media commentariat was when we were complaining about Bush's constant weeks and months away? Oh yes, they were eagerly huddled in front of weeds and barns near Crawford, marveling at the fitness and brush-clearing abilities of the resident.