So how can you blame me for wanting to unwind on the course or for five hours at dinner with former assistant chef? He’s a great organic cook, and he’s got a gluten-free backyard putting green. But, in a larger sense, we can dedicate, we can consecrate, we can hallow this ground where I can get away from my wife, my mother-in-law, Uncle Joe, Congress and all the other hazards in my life. The brave foursomes, living and dead, who struggled here in the sand, in the trees, in the water, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or subtract a few strokes to improve our score. Bill Clinton was Mr. Mulligan, and he is twice as popular as I am. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we shot here, or why I haven’t invited a bunch of tiresome congressmen to tee it up. I’m trying to relax, guys. So I’d much rather stay in the bunker with my usual bros…. It is for us, the duffers, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who played here have thus far so nobly advanced to get young folks to stop spurning a game they find slow and boring.
There are few things I find more thoroughly offensive these days than idjits who ridicule President Obama for playing golf. As a golfer myself, I think the game is the perfect form of recreation and relaxation for a man with more on his plate than any three Fortune 500 CEOs could handle. It’s quiet, peaceful, and (normally) free of prying eyes. It’s a humbling game, one that can drive the most composed person to fits of abject frustration. I used to caddy during the summer when I was in junior high school, and I learned early on that you can tell a lot about a person by how the conduct themselves on a golf course. Sure, it has a historic tinge of elitism, but golf today is a pursuit enjoyed by people on all points of the socio-economic spectrum. The rules of the game encourage honesty and discourage cutting corners and advantage-seeking.
Beyond all that, golf can be an enjoyable and very social experience. There’s a reason so much business is conducted on golf courses. Get people out of their suits and they tend to relax and become more real and accessible. I’ve played in foursomes with everyone from CEOs to pipe fitters…and everyone’s pretty much the same when standing in a fairway holding a six-iron.
Presidents have played the game throughout the course of this country’s history. While there have from time to time been rumblings of discontent voiced about a certain President playing golf, none have had to withstand the silliness that’s been directed at Barack Obama. Maureen Dowd’s tongue-in-cheek (and frankly insulting) screed is a fairly tame example of some of the ridicule tossed the President’s way.
Conservatives interpret the optics of a President playing golf as an opportunity to spotlight his alleged laissez-faire “let them eat cake” governing philosophy. This from people who’d knock the President for breathing if they felt they could score political points. The media isn’t far behind, often using the President’s golf outings while the world goes to Hell around him as evidence that he’s out of touch. What’s lost in the Sturm und Drang is a truth that holds for all of us: the need to get away from our day to day responsibilities and have some fun. In the minds of some, that luxury is something a (Black) President simply doesn’t have a right to. Fun?? Relaxation?? He’s President; therefore we expect him to be at the helm completely and totally focused 24/7/365, ready to solve the world’s problems. What right does he have to engage in recreation?
Then there are those who just can’t stomach the idea of a Black man calling the White House home. For too many of these folks, the only way Barack Obama’s “kind” should be allowed access to a golf course is as a caddy. The idea of an African-American being the most powerful person in the world…and a twice-elected one at that…is enough to make their pointy l’il haids explode. They’ll deny it’s about race, of course, saying that it’s because the President’s golfing shows him to be out of touch and unfit to lead. That they had no problem with George W. Bush golfing (“Now watch this drive!”) is either hypocritical or willfully ignorant. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide which one is more accurate.
If Barack Obama went fishing, played Cribbage, or participated in poetry slams, there’d be those appalled at the President’s obvious casual, disconnected leadership style. Unfortunately, golf has the historic (and not altogether undeserved) reputation of being elitist, which many have found all too easy to exploit. The truth is that this President has the same right to relaxation and recreation as any previous President…and Barack Obama has taken far fewer vacation days than his predecessors. His detractors ignore the fact that modern technology means a President is never out of touch or far away from his responsibilities, even as he weighs whether to use a seven- or eight-iron on an approach shot.
There are many legitimate policy issues that this President has put forth which can (and should) be legitimately debated. Such is the nature of politics in our fishbowl democracy. To believe that this President doesn’t have a right to relax and have fun is the height of arrogance and absurdity. We should be applauding the President for taking the time to care for his mental and physical health even as he balances the need to remain abreast of what’s happening in the world. Does anyone REALLY think that being on a golf course means the President can’t keep track of what Vladimir Putin is up to? And does the dictum “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” not apply to this President?
When you’re The Black Guy in the White House © there’s virtually nothing you can do that someone won’t hold up to ridicule. Criticism is easy; being the one behind the big desk in the Oval Office is hard.
Those who can lead. Those who can’t become pundits, Fox News talking heads, or Conservative bloggers with the self-appointed license to criticize The Black Guy in the White House © in the silliest and most mean-spirited ways imaginable. Criticizing the President for playing golf is just another example of how petty and mean-spirited pundits and the media can be.
