It's not like he couldn't have played golf somewhere else and folks wouldn't have still complained about him playing golf while folks are furloughed.
I don't have a problem with him taking some time off. Even for a Great Pretender who doesn't understand the office he is in, or how the government he allegedly heads works, it is still a pressure cooker, as one can tell by the wrinkles and the grey hair he has sported the last year. What I have a problem with is his complete lack of common sense in making the trip choices he's made in the face of crises.
He returned to the campaign trail the day after Benghazi without a trace of remorse beyond canned and scripted platitudes for the camera over the four men who died, men whom he still has not avenged while the alleged mastermind of their deaths roams free in Tunisia. He went to Martha's Vineyard and did absolutely nothing toward preparing his alleged "jobs initiative" in 2011. He did the same thing with the same destination this year without submitting a completed budget, negotiating obviously needed restraints for his ACA implementation (to be fair, he still hasn't), or appointing a new fed chair.
All president's take vacations, granted. But George W. Bush took nothing but working vacations at the Crawford ranch through the balance of his presidency after 9/11. During those trips he moved the entire White House staff to Crawford with him.
Clinton famously went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming twice, in '95 and '96, rather than to his usual "party-with-the-rich-and-famous" one-month stop-off at Martha's Vineyard during the leadup to the '96 elections. (Do the Democrats think they'll scoop up some of JFK's charisma vacationing there, or what?) Dick Morris told him it "looked bad" to be rubbing elbows with the ultra-rich when he was supposedly the "president of the people." Beyond that, however, particularly during the government shutdown in 1995-96, he cancelled two planned trips, one personal and one abroad representing the U.S. to Europe.
Ronald Reagan spent a year of his presidency, total, at his California ranch, but like Bush 43, all were working vacations, and he moved most of their White House staffs to the ranch during the time he was out of Washington.
This guy in the White House now doesn't have any common sense, decorum or respect for the public. If he did, he'd behave as if he at least wanted to pretend to have concern for them. Odd that a Great Pretender doesn't consider that.
On another note, if Congress has agreed to give furloughed workers backpay, doesn't this just amount to paid vacation?
Pretty much so.
