Not that it is fair, but the president will be vilified every day that he spends vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard. He obviously doesn’t care, but he probably should. Not everything in politics is fair, and politicians should be able to discern when their actions are going to cause damage to their popularity. Considering what is going on in Israel and Iraq, a president on vacation is going to take on water in rather disastrous fashion. Holding fundraisers during the vacation will only add to the damage.
The man needs and deserves some rest and relaxation, but it is going to come at an unacceptable political cost.
I’m so old I remember when Obama’s failure to visit the Texas-Mexico border was going to doom his administration.
More about dooming a Senate majority.
Which states will this swing?
It will hurt in every state.
“oh any of em all of em charlie”
sounds smart.
It’s ALWAYS good news for Republicans. <rolls eyes>
All those Senate candidates who’ve already distanced themselves from the president and the ACA and his energy and foreign policies?
I’m so old I remember a POTUS that due to US hostages in Iran didn’t campaign as he ran for re-election.
Difference in degree amounting to a difference in nature…
Phuck this shyt.
Man has taken the least amount of vacations amongst the last 5 Presidents.
You got a Congress that simply does not work.
Every year they’ve come up with some shyt to try and phuck with his vacation.
Go on vacation, Mr. President.
Go on vacation.
He’s a Black man not going to Tasty Freeze…they gonna be mad either way.
Phuck ‘ em.
He has an easy retort if he chooses to use it:
“I promised this time away to my family and, as you know, my family time is sacrosanct. Any questions?”
Check on needing a personal recess — if Congress can why can’t the prez?
I also endorse his choice of vacation spots — MV being the place Lyndon once called “that lady island”, a way to disparage people he considered soft, effeminate elitist Dems like the Kennedys.
Besides, the serious problems in Iraq, Gaza and Ukraine are likely to linger for months or longer.
A little down time might also help clear his head, and get him thinking about some new approaches to these problems. Especially Russia-Ukraine where he’s been stuck in a Cold War mindset, while the situation seems to be drifting towards an eventual dangerous hot war between two superpowers.
Same place every year possibly more important than wherever that place is. Greatly simplifies the task for the Secret Service. Avoids awkward photos such as Bill Clinton on a horse at a dude ranch. Savvy move on the part of team Obama to choose Hawaii for his annual Christmas vacation and MV isn’t better or worse than any other similar beachfront location for the summer vacation. Wealthier Presidents have the advantage of being able to vacation at family summer and winter homes.
MV also has the advantage of being in America — unlike the foreign land of Hawaii.
Speaking of dudes on ranches, I’d like to find the photos taken when Hubert, I think as prospective VP for Lyndon, accepted an invite to the LBJ Ranch. Johnson had it all ready for the Hube — including a ridiculously oversized cowboy outfit w 10-gallon hat which Lyndon insisted he wear. And of course the weaker Hubert complied — with hilarious results I understand.
Not sure those that consider Hawaii a foreign land would agree that MV also has the advantage of being in America.
Absent any knowledge of security concerns, MV doesn’t seem to me to be the optimal choice for the Obama’s annual summer vacation. They have no ties to MA, it’s viewed as a bit exclusive by middle/working class people and an attempt to harken back to the Kennedys, and adds nothing Democratic Party messaging as to who matters. Although it may make the press corps happy which is an important consideration.
Thanks for your comment, but one thing that gets missed in this is that for over a century Martha’s Vineyard has been a vacation spot for African-Americans, and it still is. Prof. Charles Ogletree of Harvard Law School, a mentor to both Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson, has long vacationed there every summer, as have other friends and acquaintances of the Obamas.
Also, the Obama’s were introduced to the Vineyard by Valerie Jarrett, whose family has owned a home there for decades.
Hilton Head Island (perhaps too hot in the summer) also has plenty of golf courses and an important African American history: Gullah Roots:
they got rid of the Gullah influence as they gentrified Hilton Head to turn it into a resort community.
Martha’s Vineyard has had a community of successful, striving Upwardly-Mobile Black people going back almost 100 years.
As I said earlier, I see nothing wrong with the Obamas choosing MV for their summer vacations. Doubt anyone cares why they did so. And as they haven’t said that they are following in the tradition of other African Americans that have vacationed there, why do you think that’s important or even a factor? Why not cite President Grant’s Oak Bluff vacation in 1874.
(May be as many “striving upwardly-mobile Black people” vacationing at MV today as there are Gullen at Hilton Head. Elite, yes. Striving, not so much.)
rikyrah can speak for herself, but based on what we do know about the Obamas I think it’s reasonable to conclude they choose Martha’s Vineyard for the same reason many people choose wherever they vacation: because they like it, and because they have friends who go there.
Additionally (again, based on what’s already publicly known about the Obamas), it seems (to me) likely that—as is true for many parents—their daughters are a major factor in where they choose to go on vacation.
Finally, I think there’s no benefit—either publicly for Barack as president, or privately for Barack and Michelle as parents and as a couple—to discuss publicly why the choose to vacation where they do.
For the record, I don’t give a crap about where the president takes his vacations or why he chooses the places he chooses. And, under ordinary circumstances, I would laugh at the predictable attacks and see them as no more damaging than when a president gets attacked for golfing.
However, this particular August, the president has just announced that we’re back fighting in Iraq, which is in a critical condition, and another cease fire just collapsed in Israel. What I am responding to is the need to keep the perception that the commander in chief is hard at work, not having fun with his family.
Everyone who responded by pointing out that Congress does nothing and takes long vacations or that Bush spent much more time than Obama goofing off missed my point.
Seeing the President making recent statements to the press, he does need to take a break and stay low-key with family/friends.
○ Last year we had the Snowden affair, military July coup in Egypt and Ghouta gas attacks mid-August;
○ Year before that we had the August break, Israel contemplating Iran strike, followed by the 11 September riots and attack on Benghazi consulate;
○ And the year before that we had a half year of the Arab uprising and NATO attacking Gaddafi forces in Libya
A President’s job is 24/7 no matter where on the globe he hangs out with family, friends, cabinet members or politicians. Oh and some fundraising in between for no citizens are united.
PS I found this gem posted on August 28, 2012 …
○ Vicky Nuland and the Down Days of August 2012
I hope you’ve seen Daughters of the Dust re: Gullah culture.
Yep, loved it.
Wished Julie Dash would get the opportunity to do more projects.
Read THE WEDDING by Dorothy West to understand the African American Atlantic coast summer homes. You’ll weep.
Being Black, if I had the money I would be on my way to Martha’s Vineyard without hesitation.
Here’s LBJ and HHH archival footage from their 1964 victory celebration at the LBJ ranch. The horse riding begins at about the seven minute mark. Definitely awkward for HHH but he also appears to be a good sport.
Well, close but not quite — I was referencing another time or moment when Hubert was down there and outfitted not in Johnson-style TX ranch garb, but in a full Tom Mix-like cowboy getup, featuring the long wide chaps and big hat, an outfit which also was clearly a size or two too large for the Hube.
I’m certain I saw at least one photo years ago pre-internet, probably in a Johnson bio. Hilarious.
I see in the above film that Johnson that day left his brand on the press, having them wear bandannas, as e.g. a young smiling Dan Rather.
And we do get a flavor of why some, such as Jackie Kennedy, referred to him in private as Col. Cornpone…
Now that you describe the image, I have a fuzzy recollection of it. But the only thing that pops up with a Google search are others describing the image as you have and cite it as evidence of LBJ’s cruelty. Odd since the only way I could have seen such an image in real time or in the subsequent few years was if it had been widely disseminated in a mainstream publication. Leads me to wonder if it isn’t an urban legend. Memories conflating the election win celebration with cartoons such as this one.
Well, if it’s an urban legend, Walter Mondale seems to have fallen for it too, as he talked about the cruelty, around the time Hubert was picked as VP, of Lyndon forcing him to wear that ridiculous cowboy outfit, and how the photo of it showed a pained expression on Humphrey’s face.
I didn’t see him looking particularly pained, nor was the outfit he wore in your video anything out of the ordinary for that time — basically standard issue TX/LBJ rancher attire with the Stetson and the jacket.
As I say, I recall seeing it only later in (probably) a bio of Lyndon, which may or may not have been a best-seller and thus widely disseminated (alas, almost all my books are in storage at the moment, otherwise I’d search them.)
My less clear memory says it was around the time he was choosing a VP, and narrowing the choice to Hubert and Gene McCarthy (!). This makes sense, as we know Humphrey really wanted the job, and Lyndon probably knew that, and so had some added leverage over the senator being forced to do ridiculous things in public, like play cowboy for Johnson’s amusement.
Johnson also had a tendency to test people’s loyalty — recall the famous quote of his: “Loyalty? Hell, I want someone who’ll kiss my ass in Macy’s window at high noon and say it smells like roses.”
Sadly, by 1964 HHH so coveted being POTUS that it’s only a slight stretch of imagination that he would have kissed LBJ’s ass. A good man before he let his ambition get the better of him.
Well, if it happened, Caro will cover it in his next volume on LBJ. btw according to Caro, The young, urbane White House staff members ridicule the folksy Texan as “Rufus Cornpone.” Ascribing that to Jackie didn’t sound correct to me and she was reportedly always gracious to LBJ when she was First Lady. From their recorded phone conversation after the assassination, it seemed to me that there was genuine affection between the two.
I look forward to Caro’s next volume too (assuming I’ll be lucky enough to be around and of sound mind by the time he finally finishes it…), and I know that will make 5 volumes and probably close to 5000 pgs on LBJ. But that doesn’t mean he can cover everything involving Lyndon — even 10,000 pgs wouldn’t cover that colorful life. There’s probably a few volumes of information Caro will never uncover, of the sordid type Lyndon took care to remove all traces of.
As for Cornpone, just going from memory but I recall it as the more alliterative version. And note I said that that was her disparaging term for him in private — she never would have been so impolite as to use that term either w Lyndon or anyone outside of a close circle of Kennedy people and trusted friends.
You also make far too much of the recorded post-Dallas stuff. It’s very misleading, Jackie seeming to toy with the situation as she flatters a clearly flirting Johnson. I believe it was Ted Sorensen in his last memoir who wrote that his initial draft of the book contained some benign/positive JFK-LBJ relationship passages that Jackie found serious fault with. She told him Jack had once said to her: “that man [Lyndon] should never be allowed near the presidency” or to that effect. Sorensen to his credit published her objections and seems to have followed many of her corrected suggestions.
Btw, Jack and Jackie’s negative view of Johnson is corroborated by JFK’s sec’y Evelyn Lincoln in the memoir she wrote in 1968, Kennedy and Johnson. That’s the book where she says JFK told her just before the TX trip that he wasn’t sure who would be on the ticket w/him in 1964, but that “it won’t be Lyndon.”
Recorded conversations are primary information. Recollections are always fraught with errors. Not disputing that RFK and LBJ loathed each other nor that the feelings between JFK and LBJ were much better. (Evelyn Lincoln also loathed LBJ.) I do give a lot of weight to RFK’s claim that JFK had no intention of replacing LBJ on the 1964 ticket. More so after reading this from Caro:
So much garbage had been and continues to be written about JFK and Jacqui that I discount the salacious stuff without viewing either of them as paragons of virtue.
Recorded conversations can also be misleading. Important to analyze everything carefully and not just let good corroborating evidence get trumped because it doesn’t arrive neatly in a form you prefer.
On JFK and LBJ generally, Kennedy found him a very difficult person to be around. Again look at the best evidence we have for that, from the person who was there day after day w/JFK — his sec’y Lincoln. She noted the irritation of Kennedy by Johnson’s behavior from the time LBJ was invited to the Kennedy home after the convention. Then in the WH, Evelyn Lincoln noted how the number of times the two met privately in the WH went down dramatically year to year — to the point where, as she observed, LBJ arranged to visit the WH anyway, to make phony visits w/the president in order to deceive the press. Until JFK caught him in the act one day.
On the ’64 ticket: Johnson himself appears to have thought he would be dumped. Read the posthumous memoirs of one of his trusted top aides in his book The THirty-FIrst of March, which gives a dramatic picture of Johnson’s very disturbed mindset in the weeks before Dallas while LBJ was in Brussels on a NATO trip. Disturbed that someone back home — the implication was he thought it was Bobby — had arranged to get national reporters suddenly flooding his home state trying to dig up dirt on him.
My view: this was a fair reading of the situation by Lyndon. The Kennedys were looking for a way to get rid of him, and knew there would be plenty of dirt to be found and published, resulting in Lyndon agreeing to step aside to avoid further personal destruction. They were sick of him, especially after the Cuban missile crisis when word got back that Johnson was second guessing Kennedy’s successful resolution of the crisis.
Bobby expressed a different view, I know, in his oral history, but note there that he had political ambitions and had to deal with a now-president Johnson, someone who in ’64-5 was not yet the very unpopular figure he would soon become. Also recall that Bobby always insisted his brother had not intended to put Johnson on the ticket in the first place — it was a mistake, a sudden unexpected power grab by LBJ, that put JFK in a difficult position where he had to let him on. This view of course is not shared by the establishment historians and media.
Re Caro: I’ve learned a lot about Lyndon from his books, but have read enough other authors to know he hasn’t covered it all nor covered some of it well at all — e.g., on the assassination, where Caro parrots the official line. With someone as complex and controversial as Lyndon, you need to go to more than one source. But I do look forward to his next volume, the one where he’ll get into LBJ and VN.
Cornpone: found it in New Yorker review Thurston Clarke’s book Ask Not.
Even worse than I recall, given her term for Lady Bird …
I’m going to go with Caro on this — “cornpone and little pork chop” sounds too adolescent and unsophisticated for Jackie Kennedy to use.
On the contrary, “Col. Cornpone and Little Pork Chop” is a delightfully clever, colorful and rustic description of the pair. I don’t know who author Clark sourced for that, but I find it highly credible, as I found his book overall a very worthy contribution in the Kennedy field.
Social Media is going to blitz him every day he spends at Martha’s Vineyard w/ a crisis in Iraq like this. You either are prepared or you fall the fuck on your face as a party. Time to make the choice.
I
Amen. Amen. Amen.
If there was ever a POTUS who was damned regardless of what he does it is this POTUS. Anyone with even an ounce of intelligence realizes that he is never more than a step away from his job, physically, and mentally a hell of a lot closer. The rest of it is all optics, and let’s remember the nasty, often-racist optics that have been perpetrated by many (most?) of his detractors on the right.
He’ll be vilified every day no matter what he does, so he may as well go take a “holiday”.
What’s wrong with Camp David?
Who’s Obama meeting on Martha’s Vineyard?
I’m not buying the vacationing story, especially in a time of critical military action.
John Kerry windsurfing comes to mind. Appearances matter. Especially if Democrats are going to run against increasing inequality (they are, aren’t they).
I’m with you, doubt it’s really a vacation.
Furthermore, with the “vacation” in two parts, he can dramatically cut it short for breaking events – twice
For months and he goes to Martha’s Vinyard every year with his family. Why assume this year in particular he is going there to have secret meetings.
Maybe it is a bad idea politically to go but there is certainly nothing to indicate it is a cover story for anything.
He’s had meetings there every year.
Make sure that Pete Peterson is not around.
Assuming there is some secret purpose to his vacation is paranoid.
??? I think perspicacious is the word you’re looking for
Martha’s Vineyard is total social networking. The press has documented it every year. Those social calls have agendas.
A vacation without a business purpose would be Camp David with no visitors and communication shut off except for an emergency.
Now, the social purpose might be no more nefarious than letting the Presidential daughters get to know some more of America’s elite offspring. Presidential daughters are Presidential daughters forever. And in this celebrity culture WHite House-era daughters are never out of the media consciousness, if not out of the media’s eye. Caroline Kennedy dealt with that fact by accepting an ambassadorship.
Tis OK. I get called paranoid often these days. Pete Peterson came to mind because there was a huge take-down of him in the Los Angeles Times this week. Want to make sure he is really gone because when Congress comes back, there is likely to be another budget standoff. Hope the policy is that “You turned down the grand bargain when it was a serious offer and played games. Sorry guys. It’s gone.”
Just a guess on my part, but I wouldn’t be surprised if part of the social networking agenda for the Obamas-as-parents is vacationing in a spot where their daughters are not the only African-Americans around. Martha’s Vineyard has served that purpose of middle/upper-middle class African-Americans for over a century.
Thanks for the information about the Vineyard’s diversity for some time. It is not widely known.
You’re welcome. For anyone who’s interested, this Washington Post article (“It doesn’t matter where America’s black elite winters. Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard is where it summers.”) from President Obama’s first year in office has more background: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/19/AR2009081904045.html
well, something is happening in Iraq. luckily our president is “on vacation” and is completely out of the loop.
Sorry, BooMan. Not buying it.
Not buying what? He needs a vacation? He will have private discussions on issues? Or he is going to Martha’s Vineard?
Vineyard
So the people that listen to this guy will be upset.
http://youtu.be/iPXYWhZlj0g
Who cares what they think? I’d be surprised if they weren’t eating their excrement.
If President Obama was standing on an Aircraft Carried personally waving the fighters to launch to drop bombs on Iraq, he would be criticized by the RW.
These people that complain about President Obama will complain no matter what he does. See it has a whole lot to do with two important qualities President Obama has. One he is a Democratic party member and a minority as well. Face it folks the GOP HATE both.
Any others that listen to the GOP squawking and join in are of the same caliber as the messengers. No matter what he does they will complain.
Everything President Obama has done has come at an unacceptable political cost.
The history of America will recall that the many opportunities for progress Obama addressed, or would have, with insight and constructive counsel have been severely curtailed or thwarted by a minority of degenerate humans wheedling undeserved power bereft of empathy, goodwill and native intelligence.
white progressives: democrats lost the senate because Obama took a vacation.
i came here looking for teh stupid, and boy did it deliver.
ugh. It’s 10 fuxkin days. Congress on vaykay whole month and Obama 10 damn days = bad optics!
of telecommuting I think the OMG the President in on vacation arguments lose more and more steam. More and more people are in a position of location not being a barrier to doing their job. More and more people, even while on vacation, end up checking emails, doing work, etc because the technology exists for them to be able to do so.
All of that it turn changes attitudes about the President vacationing. After all if I have the technology to make sure my job gets done while I am on vacation surely the President has the technology to make sure he can do his job.
Many people claim that it is racial prejudice that has most contributed to his lack of personal popularity. I disagree. Certainly there are plenty of race haters out there…on all sides of the various racial divides. Setting aside his various political and strategic/tactical errors…and who among us is free from those mistakes…I truly believe that the aspect of his character that most riles the American people is the whiff of narcissistic superiority that wafts around both his head and around his family as well.
I am sorry to say this,. but there it is. His friends should have told him. Maybe they did and he’s just so stuck inside of his own beautiful cocoon to hear them. This vacation is just one of many mistakes of this sort that he has made, and quite possibly the most egregious of them all. Here we are, with Ukraine aflame, Russia getting restive, Israel slaughtering Palestinians and an Ebola outbreak that is threatening to leap outside of its historical boundaries and there’s an election coming up in 3+ months that could seal the deal for the ratpups in the Senate and quite possibly set the stage for a republican win in 2016. His acceptance numbers have been steadily plummeting for over a year he goes to fucking Martha’s Vineyard for a few weeks!!!???
Please!!!
Bad PR, Booman.
Terrible PR.
Like he doesn’t really give a shit anymore.
Sorry, Booman but…that’s how it’s gonna read across the country.
Bet on it.
AG
How exactly did you become the spokesperson for the entire country? I know I didn’t vote for you.
AG personally communicates with all 300 million plus Americans at all times in real time. He is all-knowing and all-seeing. Bet on it. 😉
I always enjoy your “sorry to say this” schtick, by the way. Letting us poor brainwashed dupes in on the terrible truth and acting like it pains you to do so. Are you weeping as you type? Does it hurt you more than it hurts us?
You are going to need “Bet on it” shirts pretty soon, lol Remember when Booman said the GOP was doomed? Fun times…
So many centrists have no idea how to handle the reality we are facing. And it is quite simple, you can’t be a centrist anymore. The center is going to be gone and if you do continue to be a centrist, the evangelicals are going to sweep you out of the way and make way for their dominionist christian like caliphate.
If you are a centrist, watch how the christian right dismantles everything you love about this nation. Jesus christ, you can’t be soft w/ these people. That strategy has failed MISERABLY.
You are going to be labeled FAR LEFT no matter how moderate you are. So you better get to ah-tilting to the left. The fundamentalists win by default if you just laugh at them and think they are harmless.
Tell you what, you can go back to being a centrist after we neutralize the evangelical fundamentalists in this country. But you won’t do it by light finger taps on the shoulder “Ahhh excuse me that is my swing line stapler”
But make no mistake about it, “FAR LEFT” means democratic moderates as well, sorry, that’s just the way the conservatives roll.
Which time?
AG
Lol
It seems this is a thing w/ writers. Somehow bloggers have convinced themselves that American people will make the right choice if they don’t follow politics and just watch the news.
I always laugh when i see the GOP rise again because there is one thing the DNC is petrified of talking about.
The democrats were afraid to mention how many votes were stolen from e-voting. They didn’t want to talk about that. But you got 2 terms of Bush because DNC was terrified. And what do you think is going to happen? Every election the GOP wants to be close because they want to steal it.
But let’s not mention how many house races were likely thefted from e-voting. Probably why a lot of the tea party holds districts.
It’s deeper than that, FollowdaDough. It’s about the ongoing fix. Gotta have two fighters in order to run a fix, and if one side wins all the time it’s not a fix, it’s a show. The Harlem Globetrotters come to mind. But if there appears to be a real contest…a back-and-forth contest over decades…then the fix can be made to work.
One team wins, then the next team wins.
Like dat.
Anybody who rises to a position of sufficient national power that they might somehow out the fix is simply not given a chance to fight for the championship. he media non-persons them and that’s that. Bring on the tomato can and the sure winner.
Like this:
Bet on it.
Rand Paul is now nearing a position of real danger to the U.S. War Machine.
Watch.
They will try to “AAAARGH” him just as they did Howard Dean.
Watch.
AG
Projection?
As others have said, he will be vilified no matter what he does. And yeah, the optics are not good. But following the Vacation Cowboy, nobody has any room to criticize Obama on that score.
Maybe he could take Air Force One for a fly-over to survey the hurricane damage in Hawaii? They could get a very presidential picture of him looking out the window.
Who exactly is going to turn against Obama just now, after five years in office, over something so trivial? There has to be a floor for his approval ratings, just as there was for Bush’s, and he can’t be far from it.
And he’s already endured more than his share of vilification, so what’s a little more?
.
Added my comments to the interview …
○ NYT Interview On Foreign Policy Arguments: Hogwash Mr. President!
And anyone listens to Friedman, why?
Most likely, whatever faux outrage is spewed by the echo chamber will fizzle.
ISIL is not going to be hurt badly enough for Flinders.
If he needs it, then any cost is acceptable.
Those who love and hate him won’t be affected. Those in the middle have very short memories and only care about results. As long as the world doesn’t end while he’s there, they won’t care. And the world is far less likely to end if the President get a break. No one I know even knows he’s on vacation. Why should they care?
Only Democratic Presidents get vilified if they take even one vacation.
Jesus, was this stupid.