Obama Sticks With Vacation: Politico

Quoted via Politico:

OAK BLUFFS, Mass. — He picked a Fed chairman and lost a close political friend, but through it all, President Barack Obama has tried to carry on with the vacation he set out to have here — strolling the beach, taking his daughters for a bike ride, playing golf.

More duties await — he’s working on the eulogy he’ll deliver for Sen. Ted Kennedy on Saturday. And there’s a chance Tropical Storm Danny will bring him back to Washington a day early. The White House is already saying Obama needs a “break from his vacation” — a way of explaining his third trip this month, on Wednesday, to Camp David, where he'll stay through the weekend.

It all contributed to a sense, expressed by some on Martha’s Vineyard, that Obama was here but never really here — a visitor who ventured out, to be sure, but rarely plunged into public view.

And for some, it drew the obvious comparison to the last presidential tourist, Bill Clinton, who often was seen about town during his two vacations here, even at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. It is likely the result of both temperament and timing that had one president traipsing about the island and seeing the locals in all six towns and another mostly dining and golfing in private. more