Patriot-Style Vacation

American voters do not like when politicians spend holidays abroad.

August in Washington was as hot as in Moscow, and sometimes even hotter. Although there were no forest or peat bog fires near Washington, the smog over the city hung like an ax (or to put it more aesthetically, like the Sword of Damocles). Moscow’s heat reached record highs; Washington’s heat was typical. This made it easy to forget that Washington is among Southern states. Once, diplomats accredited to the White House even received a bonus for harmful climate conditions — but that was before air conditioning was invented.

In Washington, August is considered a time for vacations. It’s customary to assume that the district’s political life comes to a standstill. But this is an illusion — smog — particularly in August 2010. Formally, Congress is in recess, but in reality, there’s a fierce fight for re-election. The war in Afghanistan doesn’t take breaks (and hasn’t done so for nine consecutive years). The same goes for the panic on Wall Street. However, 10 percent of Americans are taking a break — they’re forced to do so due to unemployment.

Even the August 2010 vacations themselves became a big political issue. Washington’s inhabitants had to forget about the gorgeous beaches of Bora Bora and French Riviera cafes that smell like Campari. Unspoken taboos have been imposed on Paris and Rome. Washington politicians are afraid to cross the oceans. Not just oceans — seas too! Michelle Obama violated this commandment, went to Spain and paid for it. Even during times of economic prosperity, this was considered sacrilege.

And so, American politicians — like ancient Antaeus — are frantically clinging to Mother Earth. Barack Obama’s Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett vacations at Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Another senior advisor, David Axelrod, visits his native Michigan forests. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates heads for Puget Sound, where he has a cozy cottage. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton does not leave Washington and only occasionally visits her Chappaqua estate.

Barack Obama did not repeat First Lady Michelle’s mistakes. First, he brought his family to Panama City, FL, and defiantly swam in the Gulf of Mexico waters. It was more of a political move than a vacation. The president was demonstrating that the Gulf of Mexico beaches and water were already safe. They were no longer contaminated by BP oil, so tourists were welcome.

After Panama City, Obama spent his remaining vacation at Martha’s Vineyard. Two of his other advisors, Pete Rouse and Denis McDonough, also came there. Somewhere nearby in the bushes of New England, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner takes his vacations. National Security Advisor General James Jones vacations in the Chesapeake Bay, where he has a small house. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife visit friends in The Hamptons.

American politicians’ vacations have not always provoked such heated debates as they do today. In the old days, presidents usually vacationed on farms near Washington, hiding from the mystical “toxic fog” that hung over the Potomac in August. But sometimes, even this type of vacation proved fatal. In 1881, President James Garfield was fatally wounded as he was leaving Washington. He died two months after the shooting. In 1923, Vice President Calvin Coolidge was on vacation at his country estate in Vermont when President Warren Harding died suddenly in California. His father, who coincidentally was a notary, swore in Coolidge as president at two o’clock in the morning.

More recent U.S. presidents have started spending too much time outside of the White House, and Americans began counting those days. George W. Bush was a champion in this category. He managed to spend 533 days of his presidency relaxing, cutting brush on his Texas ranch. To mislead, the presidents started calling their private residences “white houses.” Johnson and Bush waged wars from their Texas “white houses:” the former, in Vietnam; the latter, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Let’s return to the luxurious vacation that Michelle Obama took in Spain. Continuing to describe her Andalusian adventures, the tabloids keep providing new details to readers. It turns out that Michelle’s shopping spree on the Iberian Peninsula (when precious necklaces, bracelets, designer dresses and swimsuits were delivered to her Marbella hotel room) was caused by jealousy. You see, left alone, Barack Obama celebrated his birthday on August 4 in the company of Michelle’s rival — America’s first tele-diva, Oprah Winfrey. When Michelle found out, she got angry and decided to teach her husband a lesson via extravagant shopping.

Each day that Michelle spent in Spain cost [taxpayers] $75,000. Police fenced off a huge portion of a beach for her. The First Lady danced with the famous Spanish flamenco dancer Juan Andrés Maya. Michelle has appeared at social gatherings wearing one-shouldered tops by designer Jean Paul Gaultier. National Enquirer magazine wrote that President Obama is caught between a rock and a hard place: “He hates having Michelle mad at him, but he needs Oprah — on his side.” By the Clintons’ tradition, Obama decided to spend the rest of August in Martha’s Vineyard to smooth out the “Oprah-gate” effect.

Yes, the August vacations are tough for Washington’s elite! But the September politics that await in the capital promise to be even worse.