President Obama’s handling of the beheading of American journalist James Foley at the hand of ISIS terrorists just might prove to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Immediately following the Wednesday press conference in which he condemned ISIS actions, the President hit the links at Vineyard Golf Club in Martha’s Vineyard.
“Can that get any worse,” Pat asked on radio this morning. “Just the appearance of that is horrific. But he couldn't care less. He could not care less. And it's just despicable to me. Had that been Bush talking about something like that and then going immediately to a golf course, they would have just berated him.”
Since Obama jetted to Martha’s Vineyard earlier this month, liberals have chastised those who have expressed concern over the president of the United States being on vacation in a time where ISIS is exerting more force in Iraq, Israel and Gaza are locked in a deadly conflict, and – right here at home – Ferguson, Missouri is literally on fire in the aftermath of the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
But even those Obama sympathizers were at a loss for words on Wednesday. The Independent Journal Review put together a collection of some of the tweets that emerged once it was confirmed President did indeed go golfing.
CBS News’ Major Garrett was among the first to report the President’s whereabouts:
According to WH travel pool w/POTUS, the president arrived at Vineyard Golf Club at 1:05 p.m., following statement on #JamesFoley and #ISIS
— Major Garrett (@MajorCBS) August 20, 2014
Not long after, the New York Times’ Ross Douthat chimed in:
Struggling to reconcile my belief that critiques of presidential hobbies/vacations are stupid with my annoyance at Obama's golfing today.
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) August 20, 2014
Politico’s Dylan Byers seconded that notion:
@DouthatNYT you're not alone
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) August 20, 2014
Another Politico writer, Ben White, also acknowledge the optics of this particular golf outing are pretty bad:
Consensus (correctly) forming that Obama golfing critiques are generally dumb. Except for today. When it is indeed kind of sickening.
— Ben White (@morningmoneyben) August 20, 2014
“Think about this: Hundreds of thousands of American citizens are around the country… clicking on something on their Twitter feed allowing them to see an American citizen decapitated on video,” Stu said. “And as they're doing that, the President is on the fourth hole. It's incredible to think that he would do such a thing on that type of day… It just looks terrible.”
Front page image courtesy of the AP