Monday, October 13, 2014

President Obama's 200th round of golf is a chance to defend the sport


Sunday was the 2,093rd day of Barack Obama's presidency. He marked the occasion with his 200th in-office round of golf at Fort Belvoir Golf Club in Alexandria, Va.
No doubt the president knew this milestone would bring about a slew of snark from critics. But maybe putting the presidential penchant for golf into perspective might help.
If each of the president's rounds take five hours, then Obama has spent 1,000 hours playing golf. Sounds like a lot of leisure time on the job, right? However, consider that the unique job of commander-in-chief is a 24-7 career choice, meaning President Obama has spent about 2 percent of his presidency on the golf course.
For Obama's critics, that's far too much time on the links not doing the work of the, more or less, half of the people who voted for him. (Wouldn't the half of the electorate that didn't vote for him want him to do nothing, lest he destroy the U.S. more?)
By extension, maybe the president should never sleep. In a 2012 "Vanity Fair" profile, writer Michael Lewis detailed how Obama aims to sleep some six hours each night. And he does that every day. 

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