Obama’s dilemma: Should he take a vacation now?

JULIE PACE

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — Is there ever really a good time for the pres­i­dent to go on vaca­tion? Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s sum­mer get­away to Martha’s Vine­yard has reignited a seem­ingly annual debate.

Given the demands of the job and the always-looming pos­si­bil­ity of an unex­pected cri­sis at home or abroad, the polit­i­cal per­ils of a pres­i­den­tial vaca­tion never seem to go away. This sum­mer, the vaca­tion dilemma is com­pounded by the country’s urgent demand for jobs, the debt cri­sis that’s left Wash­ing­ton with a hang­over and the public’s frus­tra­tion with polit­i­cal gridlock.

The pres­i­dent has promised that new jobs ini­tia­tives are com­ing. But the peo­ple won’t hear the details or any other solu­tions to the nation’s eco­nomic woes until he returns from his sum­mer sojourn to Martha’s Vine­yard, the wealthy island enclave off the Mass­a­chu­setts coast where he and his fam­ily will vaca­tion for the third straight year.

Obama is due to leave Wash­ing­ton Thurs­day for the 10-day trip.

The pres­i­dent isn’t the only one tak­ing a break this sum­mer. Most law­mak­ers left town in early August, right after reach­ing a deal with the White House to raise the debt ceil­ing and avoid a poten­tially cat­a­strophic gov­ern­ment default. Con­gress isn’t expected back in ses­sion until early September.

With law­mak­ers away, there’s prob­a­bly not much Obama could get done on the eco­nomic front even if he did can­cel the trip. And even if Con­gress stayed in Wash­ing­ton, too, there are no quick fixes for the country’s deep eco­nomic problems.

“They don’t have any­thing to act upon,” Rich Galen, a Repub­li­can con­sul­tant, said of both Obama and Con­gress. “If any­one knew what the answer to this was, they’d do it.”

Then there’s the issue of per­cep­tion. Obama will be vaca­tion­ing at a rented, multimillion-dollar estate on an island known as a haven for the rich and famous at a time when mil­lions of peo­ple are out of work and count­less more are finan­cially strapped.

Bill Clinton’s aides were so con­cerned about vaca­tion per­cep­tions that they polled the pub­lic before decid­ing where he should go. While Clin­ton pre­ferred trips to Martha’s Vine­yard, polling pushed him to the more rugged Jack­son Hole, Wyo.

George W. Bush was crit­i­cized for spend­ing nearly 500 days at his ranch in Craw­ford, Texas, dur­ing his two terms in office. He was there in August 2001 when he received a CIA brief­ing paper warn­ing of al-Qaida’s inten­tions to strike the United States — about a month before the Sept. 11 attacks would occur. In 2005, he remained on vaca­tion after Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina swamped New Orleans and dev­as­tated the Gulf Coast. His pres­i­dency suf­fered from his response to the storm and his deci­sion to not imme­di­ately return to Washington.

Some of Obama’s prior vaca­tions have come under fire as well. Last sum­mer, he was chided for not tak­ing his fam­ily on a Gulf Coast vaca­tion fol­low­ing the BP oil spill. When he finally did travel to the Florida Pan­han­dle for a week­end, his attempts to soothe pub­lic con­cern about the safety of the region’s beaches were tainted when the White House released a photo of the pres­i­dent and daugh­ter Sasha swim­ming in water that turned out not to be the Gulf.

Per­haps mind­ful of the president’s image, the White House booked Obama on a three-day, economy-focused bus tour through the Mid­west right before the vaca­tion. He also trav­eled to Michi­gan last week to speak at a fac­tory that makes bat­ter­ies for hybrid and elec­tric vehicles.

Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Mitt Rom­ney said Wednes­day that Obama should stay in Wash­ing­ton and call Con­gress back to work.

“If you’re the pres­i­dent of the United States, and the nation is in cri­sis — and we’re in a jobs cri­sis right now — then you shouldn’t be out vaca­tion­ing,” the for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts gov­er­nor said on a Chicago radio pro­gram. “Instead you should be focus­ing on get­ting the econ­omy going again. And, yeah, go back to the office your­self, pull back mem­bers of Con­gress and focus on get­ting the job done.”

White House press sec­re­tary Jay Car­ney said he doesn’t think the pub­lic begrudges the pres­i­dent a break to recharge and spend time with his fam­ily. Besides, Car­ney noted that the pres­i­dent is never really off-duty since White House advis­ers go with him and he still receives reg­u­lar brief­ings on national secu­rity, the econ­omy and other matters.

“The pres­i­dency trav­els with you,” said Car­ney. He also noted that Martha’s Vine­yard is close enough to Wash­ing­ton that Obama could get back quickly if needed.

Two of Obama’s coun­ter­parts had to cut short their sum­mer vaca­tions due to events at home. British Prime Min­is­ter David Cameron returned early from Italy to pre­side over the response to riots spread­ing across Eng­land. French Pres­i­dent Nico­las Sarkozy ended his Mediter­ranean vaca­tion early amid fears that his country’s credit rat­ing could be downgraded.

Short of an unex­pected cri­sis, Obama seemed deter­mined to fol­low through with his Martha’s Vine­yard plans. He has adamantly rejected the notion of call­ing Con­gress back from its break.

“The last thing we need is Con­gress spend­ing more time argu­ing in D.C.,” he said in a speech last week. “What I fig­ure is, they need to spend more time out here lis­ten­ing to you and hear­ing how fed up you are.”

Polit­i­cal ana­lyst Thomas Mann said that would be all well and good, if that were really how politi­cians spent their time in their districts.

“Most mem­bers of Con­gress go home and see peo­ple who think just like they do,” said Mann, a senior fel­low at the Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion. “It would be won­der­ful if peo­ple in Con­gress actu­ally had to con­front cit­i­zens who dis­agreed with them.”

Posted by AP News on Aug 17 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.