President Obama plays 100th round of golf, draws fire from critics
President Barack Obama, right, and former President Bill Clinton talk during a game of golf at Andrews Air Force Base on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011, in Andrews Air Force Base, Md.
/ AP Photo/Evan Vucci(CBS News) CHICAGO -- There's something about golf that makes it a compelling pastime for American presidents.
President Obama spent about 4 hours on Father's Day playing a round of golf at the Beverly Country Club with two old friends and an aide. It was his 100th round of golf since taking office.
By the number of times he plays, it's clear Mr. Obama enjoys golf, though only on a few occasions has he spoken publicly about the game.
In naming Jim Yong Kim to be his nominee to head the World Bank last March, Mr. Obama joked with mock envy about Kim's prowess on the links.
"I just found out he's a five handicap in golf. I'm a little resentful about that last item."
Men who aspire to and win the presidency are usually overachievers who conquer every goal they set, but they find golf addictively resistant to their skills.
"It's a game that I keep on thinking I should be good at, and somehow the ball goes this way and that way and never goes straight," said Mr. Obama in a Russian media interview in 2009. But on another occasion, he admitted he's "terrible" at golf, but is drawn to the game just the same.
"It's the only time that for six hours, I'm outside," said the president in a CBS News interview with Harry Smith. He said its one of the few times as president "where you almost feel normal" in the sense that he feels outside the security bubble that envelopes him at all times.
"It feels as if...you're out of the container," he said.
But never is the game of golf more controversial than when it's played by an American president. It infuriates critics who demand to know why he's not working on the nation's problems. It makes his supporters aggressively defensive about his right to have a few hours of recreation.
In reporting his 100th round in on Twitter today, I was inundated by a fury of tweets condemning or defending the president for his activity and denouncing me for reporting the count.
It's just a number reflecting one of his many activities as president. It's like his number of vetoes (2), pardons (22), foreign trips (23), addresses to Congress (6), bills signed (499) or flights on Marine One (663).
Opponents see rounds of golf as an opportunity to charge a president is a slacker, not focused on the responsibilities of his office. Supporters cheer his ability to take a few hours to refresh and revitalize. They accuse me of giving his critics ammunition to use against him.
I encountered a similar reaction during the presidency of George W. Bush when I reported on the number of his trips to his Texas ranch (77 visits/spanning all or part of 490 days). His opponents said he should be at the White House working while supporters abused me for keeping track of such matters.
Bush played 24 rounds of golf during the first 2 ? years of his presidency, but then, six months into the war in Iraq, decided to stop. "I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal," he said in an interview in 2008 with Yahoo and Politico.com.
During President Bill Clinton's 18 days of summer vacation in 1995 that took him to Wyoming, Hawaii and California, he logged over 71 hours playing 273 holes of golf.
When for the first time he broke 80 during a round of golf in San Diego, he couldn't help but trumpet his achievement to reporters.
"I was hot. I was smoking 'em," said Clinton of scoring 79 at the par-72 course on Coronado Island.
We don't ever hear about Mr. Obama's scores on the golf course. And only rarely does the White House permit the press to get a photograph of the president on the links. During the Clinton presidency, such photo ops were routine.
Different times, different presidents, different rules.
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Breaking 100 at golf would be good for this President. It would take Obama 2 stokes to reach the Eisenhower tree.
Can't imagine why? While Colorado Springs burned guess what? Obama was playing Golf. Not a word from his highness.
You would KNOW that the Colo. Springs Mayor said: "I really appreciate the president coming here ... if nothing more than just to reassure us that this has a focus at a national level, that there are people all over this country who are concerned for our citizens and those who have lost their homes," Bach said.
"And I do plan to ask for cash," he added.
Obama declared Colorado a disaster area to allow for the flow of federal dollars to help fight the Waldo Canyon Fire as well the High Park Fire, which has burned more than 87,000 acres in northern Colorado since it began on June 9.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/29/us/western-wildfires/index.html
A NEWSPAPER REPORT: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/06/obama-to-visit-colo-to-review-fire-damage/1
Jun 27, 2012
"Federal support is also being provided to local officials battling fires in Alaska, Arizona, California, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
The President made clear that he has directed his team to remain focused on the fires. He asked the Governor and the Mayor to identify any additional resources that could be provided and informed both that his thoughts and prayers are with responders and families impacted by these and other fires burning across the western United States."
Not a word . . . what angry BS from some form of hater!
America is in a sand trap -- and the American's ARE suffering because the economy is so damaged.
Obama pre-2009: I will cut the deficit by half
MORE: Obama promised us a transparent presidency -- but so far has just given us a TRANSLUCENT presidency.
"Translucent," defined from online dictionary, is "transmitting and diffusing light so that objects beyond CANNOT be seen clearly."
VOTE WISELY in 2012 -- USA-Tradition, the economy and liberty is in jeopardy!!
FAST AND FURIOUS -contempt of Congress- is another story to read about.
This is why almost nobody watches this network anymore - the obvious bias of everything associated with it - from Katie Couric's disgustingly biased softball questions to Obama and praise of everything he does to the so-called statistician who apparently quit publishing most all of the stats once Obama took office.
(a) Pres. Obama has played a round of golf just over once every other week; more precisely, once every 12.78 days. For the arithmetically challenged, that's (3 x 52 weeks) + 26 weeks = 182 weeks; 100 rounds/182 weeks = .549 rounds/week, OR (3 x 365 days) + 183 days = 1,278 days; 100 rounds/1,278 days = one round/12.78 days).
(b) Time spent on a golf course (or a basketball court or a beach) is not necessarily time AWAY from work. Whether the President's golf partners have been federal employees or personal friends like Marty Nesbitt and Eric Whitaker, their time together can easily be a time for ideas to percolate, for concepts to "cook" in what Dale Carnegie used to call the "subconscious oven." The notion that a president is ONLY working when he's in the Oval Office is just dumb!
Tell that to Michael Moore. Have you seen Fahrenheit 9/11.
I agree with you, but just sayin' that Obama is only the most recent president to be criticized for playing golf, not the first.
I also wish Bush would have stayed in Crawford when they were writing the Patriot Act, creating Dept. of HHS, Mediscare part D, and invading worthless countries that will never rise above their tribalism if they cannot separate from 7th century ideological slavery. But I guess we can wish in one hand and krap in the other and see which one fills up first.