Oh, Michelle, I love you so much. Your silky bangs look gorgeous under the lights and your deep brown eyes make me swoon. I am the luckiest man alive.
And as quickly as he snapped his fingers to book the swanky, impossible-to-get-into José Andrés’s Minibar restaurant where they dined under dimmed lights for Valentine’s Day … see ya!
The most powerful man in the world is bolting for beautiful Palm Beach to golf with the boys. And he isn’t taking wifey.
How many golf and football widows are familiar with this ploy? Wine and dine—then poof, disappear into the golf or football bacchanalian bashes not to be heard from for days.
And what perfect timing. Congress is out for 10 days, Chuck Hagel’s nomination is getting a time out while Republicans look for dirt to keep him out of the Pentagon. Time for Air Force One to jet off to South Florida so the president can pick up some pointers from pro-to-the-presidents Butch Harmon and his son, Claude III.
But no moping for Michelle, who really doesn’t seem the moping type anyway—more like the hit-the-tricep-machine-at-the-gym type. She’s reported to be packing up the girls, heading west to hit the slopes in Aspen along with Smokin’ Joe Biden. Yes, Biden. I guess he’s a stand-in in more ways than one.
Personally, my BFFs and I usually breathe a sigh of relief when we are “widowed” for the weekend. Come to think of it, we are known for sending the guys to Vegas to celebrate their birthdays so we can get a little poker and shopping time while throwing the kids together to watch each other. We call ahead and pay for their dinner, and then it’s what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
But we’re not doing it on the federal dime.
To be sure, a zillion Obama critics are dumping on the bifurcated break. How can they make the taxpayers cover two Secret Service details when on March 1 the government is about to undergo crippling automatic spending cuts in domestic programs and defense?
What we forget is that all presidents take vacations to faraway places—some more often than others. Take George W. Bush, who is estimated to have taken a year’s worth of vacation during his two terms, mostly to his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Obama, when he first came to office, was known as the basketball president, even needing 12 stitches after taking an elbow to the lip by an opposing player. But it looks like with his graying hair, he also has come to appreciate the benefits of a non-contact sport. Like all modern presidents dating back to Eisenhower, he has realized that the three or so hours it takes to complete 18 holes in relative peace and quiet, away from work and the wife, is mandatory for sanity.
Some chauvinistic pundits are portraying the dual trips as stranding the first lady without her man. But remember, the guy works from home. She sees him all…the…time. Maybe, like me and my D.C. gals, the golfing getaway was her idea too.
But OK, let’s say Michelle is a little miffed over the boys’ weekend. All she has to do is remember that dreamy dinner where reservations are “in short supply but available to the passionate”—and that her hubby just got her another four-year lease in some pretty nice public housing.
