Barack Obama’s vacay sure no pool party
By Gayle Fee And Laura Raposa / Inside Track
Thursday, May 19, 2011 - Updated 2 hours ago
Was it something we said, Barry?
So the White House has banned the Herald from press pool duty because they don’t think we’ve given the Leader of the Free World the proper respect. Imagine, the nerve of the editors of this paper to put Mitt Romney on the front page when Barack Obama comes to town for one of his regularly scheduled shakedowns fund-raisers!
And then there’s the Track’s pool coverage over the past two summers when the commander in chief vacationed on Martha’s Vineyard. We’re getting the feeling that the prez was not a fan.
First off, can we say in our defense, that — unlike our colleagues on the political beat — we hate pool duty. It’s boring. Especially on the Vineyard, where all the president does is play golf. Have you ever sat in a smelly bus with a funky toilet and a couple dozen self-important guys for four or five hours in the August heat while someone plays 18 holes of golf??? It’s not exactly All The President’s Men-type stuff.
And just try to make interesting columns out of vacation pool duty. Ha! That was a challenge. Take, for example, our take on the first full day of the president’s summer hols last August. While the Cape Cod Times story was headlined: “Obama Vacation: Out and About” (Zzzzzz) and the Boring Broadsheet went with a typically snoozy, “Island Unfazed By Obama Visit,” we took another approach: “Will Bacteria Count Beach Barack?”
It was a riveting tale about all the island beaches — including the ones near the prez’s vacation home — that had been closed due to high bacteria counts. One particularly helpful local told us that Obama should avoid taking a dip in his nearby lagoon unless “he likes to swim in poop.” Which, if you ask us, was real public service journalism! (Note to selves: Submit to Pulitzers . . .)
But did we get a thank-you note from the White House? Um, no.
Perhaps Barry didn’t like our piece on how he skipped church one August Sunday to play golf. Well, the Drudge Report sure did! Probably because the lead said: “Another Sunday, another missed opportunity for President Obama to prove to America he’s not a Muslim.
Now to be fair, a poll had just come out showing that one in five Americans believed Obama was Muslim. But we’re thinking it was the crack about how Barry looked like Caddyshack’s Judge Elihu Smails, hacking away on the 12th hole at Our Lady of the Fairways, that really got under the First Duffer’s skin. . .
Or maybe it was the column about how the prez refused to pose shirtless — even when at the beach — for the pool cameras. Or how he teed off with three guys, right after declaring it Women’s Equality Day. Or maybe the one about how he urged Americans to vacation on the oil-ravaged Gulf Coast, then booked to the Vineyard.
OK, so we weren’t the usual presidential cheerleaders of the Fourth Estate. But did Obama ever take a look at our coverage of President Clinton’s Vineyard visits??? Bubba never banned the Herald from pool duty — even after we reported that Hillary had exiled him to the guest house by the pig pen on Dick Friedman’s Edgartown farm!
So wah, wah, wah, Mr. President. Man up. Locking reporters in utility closets and freezing the Herald out of the press pool is not the kind of petty behavior we expect from a guy who put two in Osama bin Laden’s hat. Although if we see any Navy Seals floating around the Menemsha docks this summer, we’re headin’ for the ferry . . .
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