Republicans Criticize Obama's Vacation

The U.S. President takes a 10-day summer vacation on Martha’s Vineyard in the Atlantic and Republicans claim he’s a delinquent permanent tourist. The opposition has already branded him a delinquent crisis manager. The facts, however, paint a different picture.

There are towering cliffs, nice ice cream shops and gorgeous sandy beaches. Everywhere you look you see quaint little grocery stores dripping with atmosphere; if you’re looking for enormous supermarkets like Walmart, you won’t find them because they’re not wanted on Martha’s Vineyard.

Reportedly, the oldest merry-go-round in the U.S. is still in operation in the little seaside town of Oak Bluffs. In addition, you’ll see a motley collection of gaily painted Victorian wooden houses that look as though they were made of gingerbread and are, in fact, called “gingerbread houses.”

Inland, wild grapes grow on gently rolling hills giving an impression more of the idyllic Tuscan hills than of the stereotypical storm-tossed Atlantic. Otherwise, the picturesque island has the advantage of its residents not being impressed when celebrities show up. Movie director Spike Lee vacations here, as does the grande dame of television, Oprah Winfrey. Steven Spielberg shot the film “Jaws” on its broad beaches. Bill Clinton was a perennial visitor and now Barack Obama has made his third visit.

As he has already done, he and his family relaxed at Blue Heron Farm, a sprawling complex in the peaceful southwestern corner of the island not far from the Massachusetts coast. Six rooms in an exclusive villa, golf course, a basketball court and private access to the beach – that’s probably how it would be advertised in a travel brochure. It belongs to William Van Devender, a lumber wholesaler from the state of Mississippi, and is regularly rented to well-heeled guests. The weekly rental during high season can be as high as $50,000, a sum that Obama pays out of his own pocket – something not routine, even for the White House.

On Permanent Holiday

One would think that even American presidents deserve a little down time. But the attitude in Washington is highly charged with Wall Street’s Morgan Stanley warning of a possible backslide into another recession, something the Republicans take as their cue to brand Obama as a hooky-playing permanent vacationer, a sort of poolside crisis manager.

Republican national headquarters immediately began offering postcards to their Joe Six Pack base that gets only two weeks annual vacation: the president on a surfboard, on a bicycle or holding a golf club or a bag from the ice cream parlor, all of them making sarcastic remarks like, “It’s almost as hard to find good surf at Martha’s Vineyard as it is to find a job at home.”

Mitt Romney, conservative ex-Governor of Massachusetts and current White House hopeful, boasted that if he were in Obama’s place he’d head straight back to the White House. The problem is, Romney recently took so long relaxing at a New Hampshire lake that caustic commentators began wondering whether they should file a missing persons report.

Industrious Obama

And not only that: Obama is one of the hardest-working presidents in recent memory. CBS reporter Mark Knoller meticulously observed that while Ronald Reagan was serving his third year in office, by August he had notched up 112 days away on vacation, while Obama had had only 61 days off. But the all-time champion vacation-taker has to be George W. Bush: At the same point in his presidency, Bush had already taken 180 R&R days at his Crawford ranch.