Does President Obama play too much golf? That’s what the wingnuts are screaming about today. I ran into some dippychick on Facebook who wrote (in this thread, which is a hoot in itself) that the President has done “More golfing than all other presidents combined.”
True? Well, those of us of limping into our vintage years might remember another president who played a remarkable amount of golf. This is from a Golf Digest article:
Dwight David Eisenhower got in his share of golf, and then some. A study of the 34th president’s daily itinerary during his eight years in office from 1953-’61 turns up a staggering 1,000-plus days of golf, including almost 800 rounds everywhere from Augusta National to Cypress Point to Turnberry and beyond.
This was while he was President, mind you. On top of that, Ike had a putting green installed on the White House lawn. Imagine what the wingnuts would do if the Obamas did that.
By contrast, according to this anti-Obama website, President Obama has played 95 rounds of golf since his inauguration, as of April 21. I suspect that’s about average for presidents. It’s probably good for their physical and mental health, frankly.
I was a lot younger then, of course, but I don’t remember people going ballistic about Eisenhower playing golf. They just joked about it.
According to CNN, Woodrow Wilson played even more golf than Ike did. Wilson played every day, it says, which I assume includes the duration of World War I. Which kind of makes the idea that a president must not play golf while troops are in the field kind of ridiculous.
There are claims that George W. Bush was savaged for playing golf during the war in Iraq, but I don’t think it was the golf that irritated people. It was the attitude.
He could have kept playing for all I cared. I just wanted him to can the attitude. But he canned golf and kept the attitude. Oh, well.
I don’t know how far back you’d have to go to find a President who played no golf at all while President. I remember reading that Ulysses S. Grant was introduced to golf while traveling in Scotland, after he left the White House. He said he thought the game was good exercise, but he didn’t understand what the ball was for.
Anyway — it appears that the Right is pushing the meme that the Obamas are living some ritzy, ostentatious lifestyle unseemly for a President and First Lady. They have been seen in public wearing evening clothes! How outrageous! No presidential couple ever did anything like that before!
Seriously. The only thing that would make these nitwits happy is if the First Couple dressed only in overalls and got their exercise pulling weeds in the watermelon patch.
Dippychick is very frightening. She’s a regular encyclopedia of rabid republican memes. How do people get that insane?
“The only thing that would make these nitwits happy is if the First Couple dressed only in overalls and got their exercise pulling weeds in the watermelon patch.”
NOT true!
They’d also be happy if they was a singin’ and a dancin’, and a shuckin’ and a jivin’, dressed as pickaninnies, entertainin’ the white folks – when they wasn’t busy pickin’ Massa’s cotton, that is.
Golf, as Mark Twain said, is a good walk, spoiled.
And, if you ever played golf, you’d know it’s not a 4 letter-word for nothing!
How is it possible that that little ball, sitting there on a tee, can be so hard to hit with a club?
And as for hitting it where you want it to go? Fogetaboudit!
Lynne,
“How do people get that insane?”
Maybe it’s because they refuse to drink flouridated water?
And, afraid that all water is flouridated, they don’t drink water at all, and do what our predecessors did when the water was too foul to drink – drink alcohol.
Now, I like Irish Coffee as much as the next person, but angry people that they are, a couple of those in the morning and it seems as if they set them off to a fine rage. And having to drink the whole day, makes them angrier and angrier.
Me?
I’m a happy drunk! Give me a few of those in the morning, and I’ll smile!
And then go right back to bed!
😀
I remember Gerald Ford had a habit of beaning bystanders with golf balls.
This is only conjecture. But, judging from the few experiences I have had with golf, I estimate that it would take me about three weeks to complete eighteen holes of golf. I have a stunning lack of ability for it.
I’d have to move along to the “nineteenth hole” with cundgulag. It’s mint julep season.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcnFbCCgTo4
One problem with this meme is that you have to show pictures of the Obamas being sexy and cool, and hanging out with other cool and sexy people. All other things being equal, people tend to respond positively to cool and sexy. Take the caption off of that picture up there, put it next to one of Mitt and Ann Romney having a good time, and then ask people: Which of these would you rather have as the first couple?
By the way, TheBlackSphere.net turns out to be the site of a black conservative who wrote a book called “Sexy Brilliance …and other political lies.” He says things like this:
Really, the First Couple should appear in public slightly bent over, heads hung chin-to-chest and shuffling. Shuffling is very important. Black people shuffle. They should always address their betters as ‘master,’ better yet massa.
It’s common knowledge that black people are good at two things – and only two – sports and dancing. Thus, to think that a black man is capable of being the leader of America, let alone the free world, defies all reason, common sense and common decency.
And Romney alienates yet another voting bloc — golfers.
http://sportpundit.blogspot.com/2012/04/golf-channel-and-political.html
“I was a lot younger then, of course, but I don’t remember people going ballistic about Eisenhower playing golf”
Of course not because Ike belonged on the golf course, that upitty neggra gots no buisness on the links unless he’s got a rake in his hands!
Interesting that when Bush was in office, Republicans had no problem with the president vacationing and attending events but when a BLACK democrat is in office, it’s looked at like welfare.
Twenty years ago, they were complaining because Clinton was photographed working in the Oval Office while not wearing a suit and tie. There is no pleasing these people.
Jeff,
They did the same thing when there was a photo showing Obama in the OO without a suit and tie – and had to promptly stfu when everyone who had a computer and google machine was able to show many photo’s of “Baby Doc” Bush doing the same.
These are some really dumbass MFers!
And Cheney just liked to shoot people.
The next right wing OUTRAGE:
The bow tie that the President is wearing looks like a “stock” instead of one that requires being tied. It lacks that note of imperfection that is the hallmark of the true gentleman.
A round of golf once every two weeks is too much? I personally agree with Twain about the ruin of a pleasant stroll, but a tour of the greens every two weeks? These people are just feeding their noise machine and hoping some of it sounds like music to a potential voter-bigot who will seize upon it to justify the vote he/she was going to make anyway.
Hey, at the risk of repeating myself- and stop me when you see a pattern here- I am AGAIN gonna have to remind the right that they in fact luxury of complaining about “lifestyles of the rich and black” because a very hard working black man has done his job as president and handled the national security of this country instead of the color coded fear that came before it. They should thank their lucky stars they have time to have their panties in a wad about such foolish matters. It makes them look un- qualified to be a ball washer (golf balls).
The right reminds me of the monkeys at the zoo who throw crap all day because they lack anything else to do. Its a meaningless to all but them.Watch them stomp around and pound their chests if some sticks to the wall like they accomplished something. It would be totally entertaining if the rest of us were not left to clean it up.Grab your shovels folks it’s election season.
Watch them stomp around and pound their chests if some sticks to the wall like they accomplished something.
With an ALEC laws catalog stuffed in their back pocket!
Jen…That was good for Cheney’s heart. Shooting people in the face has been recognized as one of the top stress relievers among the criminally insane.