I Feel For You (But I Still Don’t Love You)
June 19th, 2010 - 8:27 pm
OK Drudge — lighten up. Nobody should get all worked up about President Obama playing golf this weekend. Or at least not too much. He’s in a lose-lose situation here.
If Obama plays golf, he gets ridiculed for not taking the BP Leak seriously enough. If he hunkers down in the White House, he’ll get compared to President Carter during the Iran Hostage Crisis.
The President made enough genuine mistakes already. So let him enjoy some golf. It might be the only real executive experience Obama has.
Or there’s option C: He does what a President is supposed to do, make decisions and provide leadership. Of course that assumes the man in the office has some level of competency in anything other than speechgiving…
I’ve worked with someone similar, nice guy who seemed adequately intelligent as long as you never saw him operate, talk to him, or even look at him. The solution is to give him a task that is hopefully within his capabilities but isn’t so vital as to cause problems if he’s not up to the task. In Obama’s case I think we have that role: Head of State and Duffer-in-Chief. Actually, thinking about his performance on the international stage we’d be better off just keeping him on the golf course.
Barack Obama plays too much golf and enjoys too many other recreational activities. It is not unfair to point this out. The man is clearly lazy and never really had any interest in ever taking on the everyday responsibilities of leadership. This job was not supposed to be this difficult. Matt Drudge is also pointing out the hypocrisy of Obama’s followers who are making a big deal of Tony Hayward attending a yachting event. I might also add that the BP top executive reportedly earned $4.5 million dollars in 2009. That’s about the same amount of money an ordinary NBA guard earns. Actor Tom Cruise laughs at such “low” compensation.
Some of the people complaining about Tony’s yacht racing have suggested that his yacht should be in the Gulf skimming crude. Of course he can’t, needs a waiver of the Jones Act.
And yet I’d bet that six years ago, you defended GWB’s vacation time, because everyone knows that a lot of important work gets done on the golf course, or because he needed the time to decompress while running two wars, or for another reasonable-seeming reason.
Let’s be realistic here. Not only do I not expect any man to work eight years without a break, I don’t want any man to. You’d go loopy after a month working 24/7 at any job, never mind a job that is probably literally one of the most stressful in the world. Now, if he’s spending more time golfing than running the country we may have a problem, but I’ve seen no evidence of that. You’re not a dilettante just because you take a vacation now and then.
“And I will not rest until anyone who’s looking for work can find a job.”
Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Weekly Address Saturday, August 8th, 2009
“My Administration and I will not rest — or be satisfied — until the leak is stopped at the source, the oil on the Gulf is contained and cleaned up, and the people of this region are able to go back to their lives and livelihoods”
TEXT OF A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
TO THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Just because he’s a self-aggrandizing idiot doesn’t mean that I have to be.
David – Stephen is being snarky.
Is Barry-O even ‘good’ at golf? Does anyone know or are those records concealed too?
Heh – even though his chief of staff is berating BP’s CEO for going yachting with his son? What’s wrong with that picture? If they can skewer Hayward for taking time off, why not Obama – especially since the containment and clean up efforts are such a clusterfark.
Steve, Steve, Steve. Matt was right. And you aren’t funny.
If Obama had shown any leadership in mobilizing clean up efforts several weeks ago, maybe. Or any interest in preventing the oil from hitting the gulf coast 6 weeks ago, he might deserve a small break. Maybe. But this guy is off playing every other day. No free pass for failure & hypocrisy.
I don’t want to live in a country where we need the President to tell people how to do their jobs. His role in a crisis of this nature is to clear red tape, nothing more.
That’s it, just clear some red tape every once and a while and your happy? Not that Obama’s doing that either.
Obviously, there’s more to the job as a whole than that. Something about running the military, signing laws, all that fun stuff. But that doesn’t get an oil spill cleaned up. I mean sure, if throwing a few aircraft carriers into the area would help, he can do that too. But I don’t exactly expect him to run around with a BBQ lighter burning off oil slicks. There’s a limit to how much he can do, and a limit to how much he should do. He can’t clean it up himself, the most effective thing he can do is help other people be able to clean it up more quickly and with less nonsense.
I agree that there are crippling limits as to what this president is able to do. Given how low his supporters have set the bar I’m not surprised. The limits to how much he should do are spelled out in the constitution and federal law.
And I don’t want to live in a country where it takes the President 2 months to figure out we have a big disaster on our hands. How about we compromise and at least look at the things that would have helped like lifting the Jones Act. And accepting help from all the foreign countries that offered skimmers & assistance days after the oil spill.
There are a lot of options between playing golf/sucking up the oil with a straw and providing competent leadership during a crisis.
Oh, agreed. That’s the sort of stuff he should have done. But the President doesn’t prevent oil from reaching shore. He’s an elected official, not an army or a deity. His job is to fix the political aspects of the problem, not to fix the problem itself.
I read this right after reading an opinion castigating the BP CEO for participating in a yacht race. Why is one not like the other?
He’s in a lose-lose situation here.
Good. He’s not just a loser, he’s a loser-loser.
I wouldn’t care how many holes of golf he played if the orders for the floating booms went out on time and the Coast Guard oil siphoning boats were sent out immediately without delay. Heck, in the age of cellphones, he could give those orders from the cart between holes. (though he should be more environmentally conscious and walk the course)
I want Obama to play golf 24 hours a day. If he’s out of the Oval Office, he isn’t mucking with the few freedoms we still have.