Obama: Golf Addict?

In her article, “Bunker Mentality,” The New Republic’s Michelle Cottle contends that Obama can improve his presidential performance by giving up his obsession with his golf game. At the least, she believes, he could improve his image: “POTUS has a prime opportunity to regroup, reload, and revamp his image” as a serious-minded president seen by the American people as firmly in control and focused on his job.

During the 2008 race, Obama’s golf outings drew less notice than his battles on the hard court. But, now that he’s firmly ensconced in the Oval Office, the sticks have come out of the closet as Obama constantly looks to squeeze in a few holes: on Father’s Day, during the family’s summer holiday on the Vineyard, immediately upon touching down from his June trip to Europe.

It is often noted that this president hit the links more frequently in his first nine months than the reared-on-golf George W. did in his first two years (after which W. conspicuously swore off the game out of respect for the troops).

Currently ranked eighth on Golf Digest’s list of presidential golfers (sandwiched between Clinton and Reagan), Obama seems intent on moving up the ladder–despite reports that he’s something of a duffer.

Most interesting is the subtitle of Ms. Cottle’s piece: “Barack Obama’s dangerous obsession with golf.”

I suppose it’s possible that Obama uses the golf course as an escape from the increasingly difficult responsibilities of the presidency. But Ms. Cottle suggests (or does she?) that golf could be a real addiction, a “dangerous” addiction, for Obama. She writes:

Seriously. Its venerable White House history notwithstanding, golf is a dubious pastime for any decent, sane person, much less for this particular president. Why would a leader vowing to shake up Washington–to alter the very nature of politics–sell his soul to a leisure activity that screams stodgy, hyperconventional Old Guard?

There are signs that Obama has been nursing a creeping golf addiction for some time now. He took up the game a little more than a decade ago as a newbie state senator hoping to bond with more rural, conservative colleagues. Next thing you know, he was hooked–playing for cash, fretting over his form, and goading staffers to cut out of work early for a quick round. …

The evidence of Obama’s “addiction” was on display in Hawaii this week when he could scarcely tear himself away from the links to deliver a perfunctory address, read off a sheet of paper, on the near-bombing of the Detroit-bound airplane, after which he rushed back to the links in his limousine entourage. Clearly, his priorities are askew.

But is Cottle serious? Is this piece a gentle nudge to a politician she desperately supports and who, she feels, could be spending his time foolishly? Or is this more a satirical piece, meant to make fun by suggesting the only thing standing between political nirvana and the US is, ahem, golf?

Either way, I can’t like this article. I couldn’t care less how much a President plays golf as long as he gets the job done. The President can sign legislation on the back nine, as far as I’m concerned. Golf is not Mr. Obama’s problem, nor ours. Mr. Obama is the problem.