NYT even getting in on the act.
Amid Cuts, Does a President Dare Tee Off?
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
Published: March 6, 2013
WASHINGTON — Fair or not, the extracurricular lives of American presidents are often measured by how they compare with the everyday pursuits of the people they lead.
And so as the nation’s federal workers and others prepare to tighten their belts amid budget cuts, reduced overtime and furloughs, it is inevitable that someone would ask the question about President Obama and golf.
It came this week from, among others, Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and Republican presidential candidate, who expressed outrage that the White House had canceled daily tours of 1600 Pennsylvania at the behest of the Secret Service, which said its officers were needed more elsewhere.
“Canceling White House tours is childish and dishonest,” Mr. Gingrich said on Twitter, citing a recent golf vacation the president took to the Floridian Yacht and Golf Club resort with a handful of friends and his Secret Service entourage. “The golf weekend in Florida cost enough to keep the White House open for months.”
Representative Louie Gohmert, Republican of Texas, even proposed an amendment that would prohibit the president from going on any more golf trips at federal expense until the tours resume at the White House.
Ari Fleischer, press secretary to President George W. Bush, said: “If George Bush were playing golf while this was under way, there would be pandemonium in the press corps about it.”
For Mr. Obama, the months ahead will be tricky. Few people object to a president taking some time to relax — to work out, play basketball, sit on a beach, go to dinner. And like all presidents before him, Mr. Obama does all those things with the costly machinery of government orbiting around him.
But the budget cuts known as sequestration are going to have an outsize effect on government workers who, like Mr. Obama, get their paycheck from the federal treasury. Some will be furloughed as often as once a week. Others will lose overtime, forcing them to cancel vacations or trim household expenses.
Officials said the White House staff would be affected, too. Some people will be furloughed, some nonessential equipment purchases will be delayed, and some staff members — though, by law, not the president himself — will be subject to reduced salaries.
“People are going to be hurt,” Mr. Obama declared just hours before the cuts went into effect last week.
So the president’s White House advisers are going to have to confront the question of how, or whether, to adjust his family’s activities. Should they go to Martha’s Vineyard? Will Michelle Obama and the couple’s daughters avoid trips like the ski vacation they took to Aspen last month? And what about the golf that Mr. Obama frequently plays at the nearby Joint Base Andrews?
Mr. Fleischer pointed out that the Pentagon’s leaders have warned that the budget cuts will have a serious impact on the readiness of the nation’s military. “What does it say about a sequester if a military golf course can stay open during it?” he said.
Charlie Black, a Republican consultant, said presidents deserved some time off, but added that Mr. Obama was vulnerable to criticism because he and his advisers “blew way out of proportion” the impact of the cuts.
“Maybe the crisis the president inflated will be alleviated enough for him to go to Martha’s Vineyard in August,” Mr. Black said.
A White House adviser said he did not know what Mr. Obama’s plans were for trips in the coming months, but he said the president’s staff would consider the impact of the budget cuts at the time.
“It’s too early to say,” said Josh Earnest, the deputy White House press secretary. “But he is the president of the United States wherever he goes, 24 hours a day. People don’t begrudge him taking a little time off.”
If the past is any guide, Mr. Obama tends to push ahead with life outside his day job even when it is sure to risk criticism.
The Obamas spent a week at an estate in Martha’s Vineyard in 2009 and 2010, even as the economic crisis was still gripping the country. In 2011, he went to the island just after the debt crisis fight but left early after an earthquake hit Washington and Hurricane Irene headed toward the East Coast.
Mr. Obama has also traveled to Hawaii each year in late December and his family has taken short vacations to Yosemite and the mountains of North Carolina. Mrs. Obama, her daughter Sasha and some friends took a trip to Spain in the summer of 2010 that drew criticism for its cost.
Such is the life of a modern president and his family. The first President Bush was mocked as out of touch when he was seen on a speedboat in Kennebunkport, Maine, during an economic downturn. President Bill Clinton hobnobbed with Hollywood glitterati and took heat for it.
And like Mr. Obama, the second President Bush was criticized for his frequent golf outings, which sometimes made him seem disconnected from the grim task of leading a nation in war.
For Mr. Obama, the golf weekend in Florida last month drew criticism at the time. But that was before budget cuts that officials say will build in intensity over the spring and summer.
For now, aides say they know of no plans for another such outing.