By Tom Toth
Chipping out from the Capitol Hill bunker, President Barack Obama often enjoys getting away from the bustle of Washington politics to enjoy a round a golf–more precisely 146 rounds since he entered office.
His favorite courses are on military bases at Andrews Air Force Base and Fort Belvoir. So when the government shutdown hit Washington–closing grocery stores on military bases including Andrews and Fort Belvoir, barricading national memorials, and threatening football games for the service academies–one could assume that the president’s pastime of choice taking place on federal property is on ice until he and the rest of the folks on the Hill get business squared away.
But you’d be wrong. All “non-essential” personnel have been sent home on the bases while the government’s shut down–and the Chief Executive Golfer’s greens of choice remain open for play.
In fact, since Obama’s much-maligned sequester hit Washington, the president has teed off for 30 rounds of golf. That’s 540 holes, or 120 hours of golf, not including nineteenth hole time.
Last Sunday the government shutdown was only hours away and the Democrat-controlled Senate was taking the day off rather than negotiating a deal to prevent the first shutdown in 17 years. Did the president fill the negotiating void left by the Democrats? No–choosing rather to take a personal day and hit the greens for a day off in the waning hours before the shutdown.
Obama taking a golf day serves as no surprise, but his Sunday vacation goes further to demonstrate where the president’s priorities lie when the going gets rough in Washington.
While no word has been forthcoming on the weekend’s scorecard, but when it comes to working for the American people he has already hooked his ball way out of bounds, and right now he resembles a lost ball in tall weeds.
Tom Toth is the Social Media Director for Americans for Limited Government
