I don’t begrudge him leisure time after spending two months (mostly) inside. Other Americans are stir crazy and shaking off cabin fever by enjoying the holiday weekend outdoors as the first wave of the outbreak recedes. He’s entitled to a break too.
But he begrudged Obama his golf outings — a lot. Not just on Twitter but in Fox News interviews.
Naturally Dems were going to pay him back for stuff like this once they had the chance:
Can you believe that,with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Obama spent the day playing golf.Worse than Carter
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2014
Even if he’d never said a word about Obama’s golfing, it would have been political malpractice not to seize on his outing yesterday as attack-ad material. One of Democrats’ most basic critiques of him this fall will be that he’s callous to the public’s suffering, the same criticism thrown at Bush 43 after the “now watch this drive” episode. Bush later gave up golfing following the invasion of Iraq, saying later, “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf.” And Bush could always communicate empathy effectively to blunt attacks that he was uncaring. That’s … not Trump’s forte.
COVID gave Trump a chance to be a decent, compassionate human being (or pretending to be). But he couldn’t even do that. https://t.co/fIzHtmbOfR
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) May 24, 2020
What I don’t understand is why Trump would help Biden out by calling attention to the ad, which he’s done for two days running on his favorite social media platform. (And which he did recently with at least one other critical ad.) Yesterday…
…vacationing, relaxing & making shady deals with other countries, & that Barack was always playing golf, doing much of his traveling in a fume spewing 747 to play golf in Hawaii – Once even teeing off immediately after announcing the gruesome death of a great young man by ISIS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 25, 2020
…and today, although this was a response to the media criticism of him golfing more so than Biden’s ad:
Some stories about the fact that in order to get outside and perhaps, even a little exercise, I played golf over the weekend. The Fake & Totally Corrupt News makes it sound like a mortal sin – I knew this would happen! What they don’t say is that it was my first golf in almost…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 25, 2020
….Hawaii in a big, fully loaded 747, to play. What did that do to the so-called Carbon Footprint? He also played moments after the brutal killing by ISIS of a wonderful young man. Totally inappropriate – and it was me who shattered 100% of the ISIS Caliphate. I was left a MESS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 25, 2020
He’s totally right about Obama going golfing after an ISIS atrocity. That was in 2014 after they released the gruesome video of James Foley being beheaded. Obama gave a statement to the press denouncing it and then headed straight for the links, his own version of “now watch this drive.” One difference, though: O admitted later that that had been poor “optics” and that he should have been more mindful of the “theater.” Not an admission of wrongdoing, but an admission at least that golfing during a national tragedy is a bad look.
Here’s the ad, followed by an extremely rare appearance from a guy who’s been locked in a basement for two months. Even grandpa gets dressed and pays his respects on Memorial Day. (Trump visited Arlington this morning, by the way, as is customary.)
Nearly 100,000 lives have been lost, and tens of millions are out of work.
Meanwhile, the president spent his day golfing. pic.twitter.com/H1BVNtgVjA
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 24, 2020
Biden commemorates Memorial Day in Delaware pic.twitter.com/Dlv03a1Ok9
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) May 25, 2020
