Give Obama a Break

In my column for CNN, I discuss why it ridiculous to try and score political points by attacking presidents for taking vacations:

Back during the George W. Bush years, Democrats sneered and scoffed at the 43rd president's extended visits to his Crawford, Texas, ranch. Where was the guy's work ethic?

Now the shoe is on the other foot. President Barack Obama has, for the second summer in a row, rented an expensive compound on the Atlantic island of Martha's Vineyard. What a snob!

Let's dial back and introduce some reality to this partisan point-scoring.

The president of the United States never gets a vacation, not really. The nuclear football follows wherever the president goes. He receives the daily intelligence briefing every morning, including Christmas. The decisions never stop, the cares of state never lighten, the burden of responsibility is never lifted.

When a president goes "on vacation," here's what happens:

1) He or she is spared the ceremonial parts of the job: the state dinners, the meetings with the girl who sold the most Girl Scout cookies that year, that kind of thing;

2) The other members of the first family are liberated from living inside the White House, aptly described by Harry Truman as "the crown jewel of the federal prison system."

But this game of tallying "vacation days" to make a point about presidential work ethic tells us nothing. Franklin Roosevelt devised the concept of Lend Lease, which provided aid to Britain and other nations in the early years of World War II, while on a two-week cruise through the Caribbean in December 1940. That seems a very good week's work -- even if he also managed to find time for a little sunbathing.

Click here to read the full column.