The President Needs Recreation Too

Just so we’re clear on this: I did not vote for President Obama and I’m opposed to many of his policies. 

That being said, I’ve decided to give him the first hundred days of his administration to find his feet before I engage in criticism of him – I think that’s only fair.  Now, that doesn’t mean that I won’t be critical of legislation, like Card Check, or of Executive Branch nonsense, like the FDIC criticizing banks for not making risky loans, but I’m holding off on direct criticism of the President for a while yet.

Not so others, of course, and that’s their prerogative, but there are some things we criticize our Presidents for that just don’t make sense to me.  One of these is the time they spend on recreation.

President Bush was criticized for the amount of vacation time he took (never mind that a President’s never on vacation like we think of); President Clinton was criticized for taking … shall we say, “relaxation breaks” in the Oval Office (my objection is to perjury, not his acts); and now Obama’s being criticized for making some March Madness picks.

Give me a break.

Apparently Mr. Obama promised Andy Katz of ESPN back in October that, if elected, he’d reveal his NCAA picks to ESPN when the pairings were announced.  Obama kept his promise (a good thing) and, by all reports, had a little fun doing it (a necessary thing).  But, of course, there are now lots of people saying he shouldn’t be wasting time on that when there’s so many problems to solve, including the Duke basketball coach:

“Somebody said that we're not in President Obama's Final Four, and as much as I respect what he's doing, really, the economy is something that he should focus on, probably more than the brackets,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said from the Blue Devils' first-round site in Greensboro, N.C.

Possibly a bit of hard-feelings there about the President’s picks, but indicative of a serious problem:  People don’t seem to want to let the President, any President, have a break once in a while.

I would hazard a guess that President of the United States is one of the most stressful jobs in the world.  In fact, if I were a betting man, I’d wager that it’s the most stressful. 

Aside from the awesome responsibility, we’re talking about living a life that is minutely scheduled from waking to sleep.  Every minute of every day has something planned.  Imagine what it would be like to go through your life having some guy with a Daytimer constantly telling you, “It’s time for …”

Even vacations are filled with photo ops and, I’m sure, somewhere on that schedule is a line-item where they’ve calculated the average time necessary for Mr. Obama to dump, wipe and flush.

So our Presidents deserve the few fun events that make it onto the schedule.  It’s not reasonable to expect them to be at their desk solving important problems twenty-four hours a day and it’s not realistic either, since the details of policy are typically set by the staff.

Lighten the hell up and let him have some fun with the NCAA picks.  Maybe he’ll even go to a game or two … that’s okay. 

Now, I do have a question about the whole thing.  Not a criticism, but a request for information. 

See, when I first read the story, I figured it was like the White House NCAA pool or something.  You know, Joe from Accounting stops by with a photocopied bracket page and you give him your picks and five bucks to get in on the pool … the sort of thing average people do.

Apparently it doesn’t work that way at the White House:

I just want to know how much that board cost and who paid for it. 

Maybe ESPN brought it over, since it was their promised story, and I’m okay with that.  Maybe it was done by a staffer, but with the equipment they already have in the White House it only cost a few dollars and a few minutes to make – I’m okay with that too.

Unfortunately, I don’t think government (anyone’s administration) is quite that simple and I’m afraid quite a lot of my tax dollars got spent on that thing – this I’d have a problem with and I’d like to know.