In the span of two weeks, there have been two very prominent terrorist hits on American citizens.  One took place in Afghanistan on August 5, when Major General Harold Greene, the highest-ranking military officer to be killed in combat in half a century, was murdered by a terrorist, wearing an Afghan Army uniform, who opened fire at a military academy.

Fourteen days later, a 40-years-young photojournalist was forced to kneel in the hot Syrian sun in front of a masked ISIS executioner with a British accent.  Clad all in black, the executioner waited patiently while a stoic but terrified James Wright Foley read a statement obviously written by his captors, renouncing his American citizenship and blaming his imminent death on the U.S. government. 

Then, as James endured the unthinkable, the executioner took seven excruciating minutes to saw his head off, after which the severed head was placed on top of Foley’s dead body and the video was posted on Twitter.  It’s horrifying to imagine what ISIS may have threatened to do to Foley if he refused to read the statement denouncing his own country.

In response to the incident, British Prime Minister David Cameron, who was one day into his summer vacation, returned to London to attend vital meetings addressing the threat posed by ISIS.

Cameron said on Twitter, “If true, the murder of James Foley is shocking and depraved. I will today chair meetings on the situation in Iraq/Syria.”

Apparently, after seeing a British subject execute an American citizen, David Cameron couldn’t, with a clear conscience, have spent another minute at the Surfside Cafe in Polzeath, Cornwall sipping tea and enjoying the balmy weather.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama had zero compunction about returning to Martha’s Vineyard after coming home for a couple of days toting oldest daughter Malia. 

The president couldn’t break away from his golf game to attend Major General Greene’s funeral, with full military honors, at Arlington Cemetery on Friday, but was able to land at the White House early Monday morning and hang around for less than 48 hours.

Supposedly Obama spent $1.1 million to fly round trip for meetings, for a national security briefing including discussions about Ferguson, Missouri, and to meet with his economic team.  Obama also participated in a tête-à-tête on Iraq with Joe Biden, who had just got back from his third vacation partying in Long Island’s haven for the rich, the Hamptons.

After receiving word that James Foley had been beheaded, and as Mr. and Mrs. Foley eulogized their murdered child, calling him an “extraordinary son,” Barack Obama, probably eager to get back to the golf course, loaded younger daughter Sasha onto Air Force One and flew back to the tony enclave in Massachusetts to finish out the week.

Based on the flimsy reasons for the president to fly home with one daughter, only to fly back with the other, as the Foleys prepare to receive the body of a son with a severed head, it looks as though President Obama was just doing a little parental drop-off and pick-up.

About the beheading of the young man from New Hampshire, National Security Council Spokesperson Caitlin Hayden did issue the following statement:

The intelligence community is working as quickly as possible to determine its authenticity. If genuine, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist and we express our deepest condolences to his family and friends. We will provide more information when it is available.

Thus far, unlike David Cameron, who isn’t likely to pick up where he left off vacationing in Cornwall anytime soon, President Obama, who’s been enjoying jazz festivals and busting some fancy moves out on the dance floor, has chosen to stay on in Martha’s Vineyard.

Instead of wasting precious time away from the golf course, the president made a brief statement about Foley’s death from the Vineyard.  It was there where he offered his usual empty comments about being vigilant and “relentless” in the war against terrorism, neither of which he is.

After chronicling a list of things ISIL has done in addition to severing the head of Jim Foley, Obama informed America that ISIL is a “cancer” that follows a “nihilistic ideology,” which on a smaller scale is similar to the rebellious goings-on in Ferguson, Missouri.

According to the president, ISIL has “no place in the 21^st century” and will ultimately “fail.”  If they do fail, it won’t be because Obama has committed the American military to exact justice for the terror group’s ongoing acts of war, the latest of which was perpetrated on an innocent American man named Jim Foley.

During his statement, the president did wax poetic when he mentioned otherworldly things like common security and values, hope and civility, and the topic of prayer.  Obama cited “the ache of [Jim Foley’s] absence,” and although he didn’t say how it would be done, Obama, who has left the American people vulnerable, spoke of doing “everything we can do to protect our people and the timeless values that we stand for.” 

Then President Obama went golfing.

Despite how abysmal the optics would be, Barack Obama didn’t offer to cut short his vacation to attend to the looming ISIS threat. Not the genocidal slaughter of thousands of Yazidis and Kurds, nor witnessing an innocent American being beheaded, let alone ISIS warning the U.S. that “[w]e will drown all of you in blood” has been able to deter Barack Obama from finishing out his last few vacation days of non-stop golfing on Martha’s Vineyard.

Jeannie hosts a blog at www.jeannie-ology.com.