PrintWhite House defends president's golfing after Foley statement
Want more evidence that the White House is in it's own little cocoon? Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz is defending the president going golfing minutes after his statement on the Foley execution. Even liberals are piling on Obama for disrespecting the Foleys and the country. But for the White House, golging helps clear the president's head.
While principal deputy press secretary Eric Schultz declined “to get into the mind-set” of the president’s golf habit, he offered that “sports and leisure activities are a good release and clearing of the mind.”
Obama is at the tail end of a two-week vacation on Martha’s Vineyard — punctuated by a two-day return to Washington earlier this week — and is set to return to the White House on Sunday. He is facing criticism for appearing insensitive for following up his Wednesday statement on Foley and the threat that Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant poses to the United States with a trip to Vineyard Golf Club, where he spent the afternoon playing with former NBA star Alonzo Mourning, investor Glenn Hutchins and Cyrus Walker, a cousin of senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.
But, Schultz said, Foley’s death has “absolutely captured the president’s attention.”
“Just because the president is in a different location doesn’t mean he isn’t doing his job,” he also said, repeating a common refrain that the White House offers when facing criticism about presidential vacations.
The White House doesn't get it. They are so focused inward that they can't step outside the cocoon to see the effect of the president's actions on the country and the world.
That NY Daily News front page picture was transmitted around the world. Putin saw it. IS saw it. Assad saw it. Someone should ask Schultz what kind of impression the president thinks his golfing made on those characters?
