Either Obama is bad at math or a liar

Dear Ruler has been caught. A person can only tell a lie if they know the fact to be untrue at the time they utter it. And that brings us to an unctuous utterance from Dear Ruler. Is he merely demonstrating his ignorance (he has an adequate supply, after all) or was he lying. You be the judge. Here’s the situation …

On multiple occasions, Barack Obama has stated that he should not be paying a lower effective tax rate than a teacher. Here’s just one specific example (though there are many): At a recent town hall meeting in Mountain View, California, Obama said, “Somebody who’s making $50,000 a year as a teacher shouldn’t be paying a higher effective tax rate than somebody like myself.”

That’s a pretty bold claim on the part of our Dear Ruler, wouldn’t you say? So FactCheck.org did the math, and you can guess what they found … Obama’s claim that he pays a lower tax rate than a teacher earning $50,000 a year is false. Here are the details from FactCheck.org.

A single taxpayer with $50,000 of income would have paid 11.9% in federal income taxes for 2010, while the Obamas paid more than twice that rate — 25.3% (and higher rates than that in 2009 and 2008). And if the $50,000-a-year teacher were in Obama’s tax situation — supporting a spouse and two children — he or she would have paid no federal income taxes at all.

The outcome is the same whether we count payroll taxes or not, and even if we look at what the $50,000 earner will pay on 2011 income. Whatever the assumption, the rates Obama paid were higher — and usually much higher.

Obama has made it crystal clear that his 2012 reelection campaign is going to be based on the exploitation of wealth envy. If you’re paying attention you now know that he will resort to flat-out falsehoods in order to pander to the dumb-masses who don’t know any better. Obama is creating his own reality – a reality where the rich don’t pay their “fair share” and he pays taxes at a lower rate than middle-class Americans. Neither of these are true, yet he will continue to push these ideas until people actually believe that they are true.

Know what? I go with liar. These statements are untrue, he knows them to be untrue, and he knows them to be untrue at the moment he makes them. That makes him a liar.

Obama’s own campaign team has acknowledged this strategy of focusing on wealth envy, because he has zero accomplishments when it comes to the economy. His advisors say, “He needs to shift the focus from his stewardship of the economy to the stark choice confronting voters about the nation’s political leadership.” Well no $4it, Sherlock So now jobs are no longer the focus for Obama. Screw jobs, because Obama knows that he doesn’t know how to solve that problem. Instead, let’s focus on leadership. An Obama campaign advisor says, “Most Americans are very concerned about the future and the direction we’re going to take.” I don’t understand why the Obama administration thinks that this is going to work in their favor considering the latest Rasmussen polls show that just 17% of Americans say the country is heading in the right direction. So what direction does Obama want to take this country? Toward a redistributive society where the government seizes money from the Haves and gives it to the Have-Nots; toward a society where political leaders, not the private sector, decide where new economic growth will and will not be, and where new jobs will be created and where they will be eliminated. The LATimes reports, “Obama is tapping into resentment over the growing concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands.” They say this “helps the president forge an emotional connection with his base, especially minorities and working-class voters who have been falling behind.”

Does this re-election strategy inspire you to work hard or risk your savings to start the business of your dreams? If Obama manages to pull this thing off based on a re-election campaign of wealth envy, then the achievers in this country better bend over.

Senate rejects GOP bill to expand, speed up offshore drilling

The Senate on Wednesday rejected Republican-backed legislation intended to speed up and expand offshore oil and gas drilling.

In a 42-57 vote, the Senate failed to move forward with the bill, which was opposed by the White House and most Senate Democrats. Republicans needed 60 votes for the measure to proceed.

Every Senate Democrat voted against the motion to proceed along with five Republicans: Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Mike Lee (Utah), Richard Shelby (Ala.), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and David Vitter (La.).

The legislation – which is similar to bills the House approved in recent weeks – would set deadlines for several upcoming Gulf of Mexico lease sales.

It also would require lease sales off the coasts of Alaska and Virginia that the Interior Department had canceled following last year’s oil spill.

In addition, it would require the Interior Department to approve or deny offshore drilling permit applications within 60 days of filing, or the permits would be automatically approved.

Republicans characterized the bill as a step toward ending what they call undue White House limits on domestic energy development.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), speaking ahead of the vote, called it a modest “first step” in the GOP energy strategy.

Christians Fight Back

Unlike some past incidents where Muslims attacked Christian churches as congregants ran away, worshipers at two churches in Cairo didn’t sit around and take it. They met the fanatics in the streets and a riot ensued:

Religious tension continues to seethe in Egypt after a violent clash between Christians and Muslims left ten dead and 190 arrested, heading for military trials.

The county’s military rulers reacted swiftly after an attempt to burn down two churches set off a riot in a Cairo slum.

Mobs of ultraconservative Muslims from the Salafi religious trend converged on a church in the slum of Imbaba late Saturday following rumours of an interfaith romance.

Christians barricaded themselves inside and around the church when the demonstrations turned violent. Witnesses said people on rooftops fired into the crowd.

At least six of the dead were Muslims.

The incident follows the bombing of a church on New Year’s day that left 21 dead and sparked clashes between the country’s minority Christians and riot police.

“This is something that’s very much seething underneath,” said CTV’s Martin Seemungal, reporting from Jerusalem, noting that since Egypt’s recent revolution, “people are wondering, and Christians in particular are very concerned, how they are going to be treated in a new Egypt.”

They’ve already gotten an answer to that question.

OBAMA’S IDIOTIC DRILLING MORATORIUM

Idiotic? Of course it is! But come on folks, what do you expect from a man with Obama’s impeccable anti-business credentials and complete lack of meaningful experience? Common sense? Haven’t you given up on that yet?

So now we have deep water drilling rigs cruising out of the Gulf of Mexico and heading to friendlier waters off the coast of Africa. These things aren’t like cruise ships … they don’t just turn around and come rushing back. Besides .. why would they? There’s no work to do here. Obama has his drilling moratorium in effect!

Twice the federal courts have slapped down Obama and his attempts to stop all deep water drilling in the Gulf .. and twice The Community Organizer has told the federal courts to shove their rulings where the sun don’t shine. He wants to ban drilling in the gulf for six months … or more … and no federal judge is going to tell The Chosen One what he can and cannot do as long as he is Go …. er … the president.

Reason? The Community Organizer says that drilling should stop until we find out what happened. Really? This has nothing to do with drilling safety. Obama’s actions in shutting down the economy of the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast because of the Deepwater Horizon debacle would be comparable to a decision to shut down all airline travel in the U.S. after one airline crash. It generally takes the National Transportation Safety Board about a year to report on the cause of an airline crash. Perhaps in ObamaWorld we should shut the system down until that report comes!

If you want to know what is really going on .. just check out the people Obama has appointed to top environmental posts. These are people who’s anti-capitalist credentials are every bit as strong as their love for Polar Bears and Gulf shrimp. Obama is taking advice from people who simply don’t like the private sector and will do everything they can at every opportunity that presents itself to denigrate and harm the private economy.

PolitiZoid – Same As It Ever Was

Thousands protest drilling moratorium at rally

LAFAYETTE — Thousands attended a rally in Lafayette Wednesday aimed at convincing the Obama administration to lift the federal offshore drilling moratorium, which officials said could further endanger the state through the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

The “Rally for Economic Survival” was held at the Cajundome and drew about 11,000 people, some dressed in their oil industry uniforms, others in shirts bearing messages of “Drill Baby Drill” and “No Moratorium.”

The event attracted national media attention and featured elected leaders from the local, state and federal level.

Lt. Gov. Scott Angelle served as master of ceremonies and fired up an already lively crowd, proclaiming that “it is time to quit punishing innocent American workers to achieve some unrealistic political agenda.”

Read more here.

First rig sails away over drilling ban

WASHINGTON — Diamond Offshore announced Friday that its Ocean Endeavor drilling rig will leave the Gulf of Mexico and move to Egyptian waters immediately — making it the first to abandon the United States in the wake of the BP oil spill and a ban on deep-water drilling.

And the Ocean Endeavor’s exodus probably won’t be the last, according to oil industry officials and Gulf Coast leaders who warn that other companies eager to find work for the now-idled rigs are considering moving them outside the U.S.

Devon Energy Corp. had been leasing the Endeavor to drill in the same region of the Gulf as BP’s leaking Macondo well, which has been gushing crude since a lethal blowout April 20.

But Diamond announced Friday it will lease the rig through June 30, 2011, to Cairo-based Burullus Gas Co., which plans to send the Endeavor to Egyptian waters immediately.

Devon is one of three companies that has cited the deep-water drilling ban in trying to ease out of contracts to lease Diamond rigs. Diamond, a drilling company, said it expects to make about $100 million from the deal, including a $31 million early termination fee it recovered from Devon.

Larry Dickerson, CEO of Houston-based Diamond, signaled that other of his company’s rigs could be relocated, too.

“As a result of the uncertainties surrounding the offshore drilling moratorium, we are actively seeking international opportunities to keep our rigs fully employed,” Dickerson said. “We greatly regret the loss of U.S. jobs that will result from this rig relocation.”

It was unclear how many U.S. jobs could leave with the Ocean Endeavor, but typically more than 100 workers are on the rig at any given time, doing everything from drilling to cooking meals. Onshore, a network of businesses supplies the rigs with groceries, equipment, uniforms and drilling materials.

“It’s not unusual for an energy service company to have 1,000 vendors that they buy from or purchase services from,” noted Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands. As a result, Brady said, the economic damage from the moratorium stretches far and wide.
Fearing for investment

Brady and other oil-patch lawmakers have been pressing President Barack Obama to end the six-month moratorium he imposed on 33 deep-water projects May 27 after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig that was drilling a well for BP.

Obama said the ban was needed to allow time for new safety standards to be implemented and a commission to investigate the cause of the April 20 blowout at BP’s Macondo well.

Although the administration on Thursday lost its second bid to keep the ban in place while it appeals a federal court’s decision to strike down the moratorium, federal regulators plan to try again with a revised version soon.

Dan Pickering, a financial analyst with Tudor, Pickering Holt & Co. Securities, said the legal uncertainties surrounding the ban – and the administration’s plan to issue a new, revised moratorium – ensure that no companies will resume deep-water drilling in U.S. waters anytime soon.

“Are you really going to spend $5 million … getting ready to drill a well that someone would then probably block you from drilling?” Pickering said.
Lawmakers complain

Pickering added that prospects are high that a dozen rigs ultimately could leave the Gulf of Mexico because of the ban.

Brady said the rig owners are searching for revenue – even if it means relocating to get it.

“There are two types of rigs in the deep-water Gulf today: those that are leaving the country and those that want to, because with this moratorium hanging over their heads, they simply can’t go back to work,” Brady said. “I’m afraid this is the first of many rigs and many American jobs to leave the Gulf.”

Once the rigs relocate, it could be a minimum of five to 10 years before they return, predicted Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land.

“We cannot afford to lose these jobs or the energy they provide,” Olson said. “President Obama should allow this moratorium to remain lifted and let Americans get back to work.”

During trading Friday, Diamond Offshore stock fell 86 cents – or 1.32 percent – to close at $64.40. It has fallen 29 percent from its closing price of $91.20 on April 20, the day the Deepwater Horizon exploded.

The Dumbest President…EVER?

By Stuart Schwartz

Barack Obama is the dumbest president…EVER.

That is a reasonable conclusion once you’ve assessed the first nineteen months of his presidency and compared it to the definition of intelligence put together by researchers in the field. Although the mainstream media have spent the last two years proclaiming Obama “super-smart” or, as Newsweek put it, “sort of God” in stature and brilliance, the 44th president of the United States is poised to surpass our 15th president, James Buchanan. Jr., as the White House occupant who has made the dumbest moves while in office. With two years left, he is on the fast track to last.

That takes some doing, for the leadership of the hapless Buchanan prior to the Civil War “has led to his consistent ranking by historians as one of the worst Presidents.” This is the president who vetoed a college funding bill because “there were already too many educated people” in the young nation. Buchanan’s judgment was so wretched that he thought anti-slavery forces could be convinced to give up their opposition by his personal assurances that slaves were “treated with kindness and humanity” and that poverty could be ended by simply printing more money. Sound familiar?

Barack Obama is dumb. How dumb? Alfred E. Newman dumb, says columnist David Limbaugh, who labeled him “President Alfred E. Obama” because of his blithe disregard of the basics of fiscal responsibility. Alfred E. Newman is the Mad magazine mascot, whose answer to every problem is his signature statement: “What, me worry?”

How dumb? How-many-Obamas-does-it-take-to-screw-in-a-light-bulb dumb. And in the answer lies the answer, the key to his pole position in the race to last: It takes 242. One to hold the light bulb, four to turn the ladder, eighteen to assess conformity to OSHA workplace requirements, four to assess the environmental impact of the burnt-out bulb disposal, twelve to participate in a task force to evaluate green energy solutions for a replacement bulb, eight to script his actions, four to script instructions and work the teleprompter, 23 to work with the justice department to sue the light bulb manufacturer…you get the picture. And, à la Buchanan, Obama never does get that light bulb changed.

That James Buchanan “fiddled while Rome burned” seems to be the consensus of historians. His approach to the raging controversy over slavery in the decade preceding the Civil War was based on ignoring evidence and acting upon events as he wished them to be, not as they were. Fast-forward to the present: Obama responds to the Gulf crisis by trying to move us toward the collapsed centralized green economy of Spain, ignoring the fact that even Spain acknowledges that “every ‘green job’ created with government money…came at the cost of 2.2 regular jobs, and only one in 10 of the newly created green jobs became a permanent job.”

In all areas of his presidency, Obama has demonstrated a striking disregard of facts, lack of good reasoning, and inability to function at an executive level, all at the core of the textbook definition of intelligence derived from more than a half century of research. Intelligence, the experts tell us, comes down to understanding the meaning of the world around us, and then using that understanding to live skillfully and appropriately (i.e., to get stuff done). One survey of more than fifty researchers in the field of intelligence offers the following definition:

A very special mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—“catching on”, “making sense” of things, or “figuring out” what to do.

Obama is Buchanan-esque in his inability to function as an executive, a key part of intelligence. Even a cursory analysis of history shows that limited government and free markets have produced prosperity; so Obama expands government and takes over private businesses, causing one observer to throw up his hands at another Buchanan moment from Obama and exclaim, “It isn’t rocket science, Mr. President!” Hands-on executives and laser focus are business school basics for solving problems; so Obama parties rather than roll up his sleeves, unleashes federal regulators on hapless Gulf state residents rather than cutting through the red tape, and appoints study panels even as the oil washes ashore (e.g., see video timeline). Radical Islamists are waging war against the United States; Obama does a full Buchanan — or, if you will, an Alfred E. Newman-style “What, me worry?” — and, denying the existence of Islamic terrorism, asks whom are you going to believe — me or your lying eyes?

The ability to draw reasonable conclusions from everyday life and then use those conclusions to adapt is fundamental to high intelligence, says cognitive psychologist Robert J. Steinberg, the award-winning Tufts University dean and University of Cambridge fellow. In other words, the scientific community has established good reasoning, learning from past experience, and acting according to those experiences as integral to high intelligence.

It does not include, as David Brooks, tells us, having an exceptional and “perfectly creased pant [leg]” or — in what Hot Air’s Allahpundit calls “a loathsome expression of elitism” — being able to “talk like us,” Brooks, and others of the “smart set.” If that were the case, all we would need to increase intelligence in the U.S. Congress is to provide our elected representatives with dry cleaning services. As for the “talk like us” part, it doesn’t take intelligence to talk like a self-styled intellectual, a.k.a. a New York Times columnist. Hawkeye Pearce has already shown us the way in the classic “Love Story” episode of television’s “Mash.” He teaches Radar, the shy Iowa farm boy who has a crush on a nurse who reads the classics and enjoys Bach, to reply with, eyebrows uplifted, “Ahhh…Bach” when she discusses music and throw in the occasional “That’s highly significant.”

Want to impress David Brooks and others of the media engaging in what Bernard Goldberg calls “a slobbering love affair” with the president? Simple. Reply, as Obama has done, “Ahhh…Burke” to David Brooks, enthralled by a president who expressed appreciation for the “finer points” of political philosophy; or flash your degree to Christopher Buckley, formerly of National Review, awestruck by Obama’s “Harvard intellect”; or simply present Marxism and mainline elegance as typical of the academic life, and media academics like Michael Beschloss will gush on mainstream news, “he’s probably the smartest guy ever to become President.”

But intelligence is as intelligence does, as Forest Gump might remind us. Harvard has produced more than its share of great men and women, but it has also produced the Unabomber, Barney Frank, and Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling…and now, the next James Buchanan.

So the next time Brooks or others in the mainstream media firmament tell you that Barack Obama is a towering intellect, the smartest president ever, just nod your head wisely and say, “Ahhh…pant leg.”

HOW OBAMA BUNGLED THE OIL SPILL: AN INSIDE STORY

By Dick Morris And Eileen McGann
06.28.2010

It’s one thing to say that Obama’s Administration showed its ineptitude and mismanagement in its handling of the Gulf oil spill. It is quite another to grasp the situation up close as I did during a recent visit to Alabama.

According to state disaster relief officials, Alabama conceived a plan – early on – to erect huge booms off shore to shield the approximately 200 miles of their state’s coastline from oil. Rather than install the relatively light and shallow booms in use elsewhere, the state (with assistance from the Coast Guard) canvassed the world and located enough huge, heavy booms – some weighing tons and seven meters high – to guard their coast.

So, Alabama decided on a backup plan. It would buy snare booms to catch the oil as it began to wash up on the beaches.

But…the Fish and Wildlife Administration vetoed the plan saying it would endanger sea turtles that nest on the beaches.

So, Alabama – ever resourceful – decided to hire 400 workers to patrol the beaches in person scooping up oil that had washed ashore.

But…OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Agency) refused to allow them to work more than twenty minutes out of every hour and required an hour long break after forty minutes of work so the cleanup proceeded at a very slow pace.

The short answer is that every agency – each with its own particular bureaucratic agenda – was able to veto each aspect of any plan to fight the spill with the unintended consequence that nothing stopped the oil from destroying hundreds of miles of wetlands, habitats, beaches, fisheries, and recreational facilities.

Where was the president? Why did he not intervene in these and countless other bureaucratic controversies to force a focus on the oil, not on the turtles and other incidental concerns?

According to Alabama Governor Bob Riley, the Administration’s “lack of ability has become transparent” in its handling of the oil spill. He notes that one stellar exception has been Obama aide Valerie Jarrett without whom, he says, nothing whatever would have gotten done.

Eventually, the state stopped listening to federal agencies and just has gone ahead and given funds directly to the local folks fighting the spill rather than paying attention to the directives of the Unified Command. Apparently, there is a world of difference between the competence of the Coast Guard and the superb and efficient regular Navy and military.

Now, the greatest crisis of all looms on the horizon as hurricanes sweep into the Gulf. Should one hit off shore, it will destroy all the booms that have been placed to stop the oil from reaching shore. And there are no more booms anywhere in the world according to Alabama disaster relief officials. “There is no more inventory of booms anywhere in Earth,” one told me in despair.

The political impact of this incompetence has only just begun to be felt. While Administration operatives are flying high after a week in which the president’s ratings rebounded to 49% in Rasmussen after his firing of General McChrystal, the oil is still gushing and the situation is about to worsen.

The obvious fact is that Obama has no executive experience nor do any of his top advisors. Without a clear mandate from the top, needed efforts to salvage the situation are repeatedly stymied by well meaning bureaucrats strictly following the letter of their agency policy and federal law. The result, ironically, of their determined efforts to protect the environment has been the greatest environmental disaster in history. But some turtles are OK!

Obama’s golf game tees up image debate

By Alexander Bolton

President Barack Obama is facing the same dilemma several of his Republican predecessors faced during times of national crisis: whether to golf.

His love of the game is clear from his willingness to play over successive weekends, even in sweltering heat.

But he has come under criticism from Republicans — and some in the media — for playing the country-club sport while millions of gallons of oil spew into the Gulf of Mexico.

Obama has played at least seven times since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20, according to a compilation of media reports. He has reportedly golfed a total of 39 times since his inauguration, though some rounds came during vacations.

“Very seldom do people look at a president golfing with admiring eyes,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. “Like [Sen.] John Kerry [D-Mass.] with windsurfing and Obama with golfing, there’s a feeling that it is an Ivy League, country-club activity.”

Obama’s golf game became a political issue this week when Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, called on the president to quit playing until oil stopped gushing into the Gulf.

A White House spokesman pointed out that the president, given the demands of an all-consuming job, deserved a little time to himself.

“I don’t think that there’s a person in this country that doesn’t think that their president ought to have a little time to clear his mind,” said Bill Burton.

Republicans used Kerry’s fondness for windsurfing to deadly political effect in 2004, when he was the Democratic presidential nominee. GOP strategists portrayed Kerry as a member of the elite and a politician who followed the prevailing political winds.

Some in the GOP have been leery of following Steele’s lead in criticizing Obama for how he spends his weekends. Sens. George LeMieux of Florida and Roger Wicker of Mississippi, two Republicans who have blasted Obama’s response to the spill, declined to take issue with his golfing during the crisis.

“He needs to be more focused on the Gulf of Mexico; it’s not just tar balls, it’s sheets of oil that have been washing ashore,” said LeMieux. “But I’ll leave the president’s personal time to him.”

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) has likewise criticized the president’s handling of the Gulf disaster, saying he needs to have “a higher command-and-control operation.”

But Nelson said he is not concerned with how much time Obama plays golf.

Said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who frequently disagrees with Obama on policy matters: “It’s a low blow.”

Other Gulf Coast lawmakers, including Rep. Allen Boyd (D), who represents the Florida panhandle, and Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu (D), said the same.

Democrats were more outspoken about commanders in chief who golfed when Republicans controlled the White House, according to presidential historians.

GOP President Dwight Eisenhower loved golf so much that he made several trips to Augusta, Ga., site of the Masters Golf Tournament, where he had a house on the course.

“Eisenhower was criticized by Democrats who didn’t have a great deal to criticize him for as being asleep at the controls and spending too much time on the golf course,” said historian John Sayle Watterson, author of The Games Presidents Play: Sports and the Presidency.

Eisenhower’s golf habit led to a confrontation with Congress when his staff tried to trap and remove squirrels digging up a putting green on White House grounds.

Former Sen. Richard Neuberger, an Oregon Democrat, called on Eisenhower to leave the squirrels alone and helped set up a Save the White House Squirrels Fund. Eisenhower eventually backed down.

Former President Gerald Ford, another Republican, came under attack from Democrats and the media for taking a golfing trip to California at a time when the inflation rate was rapidly rising, threatening the economy.

“He was criticized for being away at a critical time,” said Watterson.

Former President John F. Kennedy and his aides were keenly aware of the public image golf projected. They used to joke about the amount of time Eisenhower spent on the links.

After Kennedy won the White House in 1960, he initially tried to keep his golf playing from the public eye.

Obama often plays at Andrews Air Force base, where public access is restricted. When he plays at other courses, he often deploys protective foursomes ahead of and behind his golfing party so bystanders have a tough time catching a glimpse of him mid-hack.

The president also holds his scorecards back from public scrutiny, perhaps fearful that an appalling score may raise questions about his prowess in other matters.

Obama was roundly mocked on the campaign trail in 2008 when he bowled an atrocious 37 out of a possible 300 while on the stump in Pennsylvania — though he did not finish the whole game.

Tim Joyce, a columnist for RealClearSports.com, said that sports can become a metaphor for a president’s governing style.

Former President Jimmy Carter’s reputation as a micro-manager was cemented after it emerged he had sign-off authority over who used the White House tennis courts.

Carter’s near-collapse from exhaustion during a Maryland 10K race became a troubling symbol of a presidency that seemed to be running out of steam.

Joyce noted that former President George H.W. Bush spent much of his presidency fighting the public perception that he was a pampered East Coast establishment elite.

To avoid fueling his country-club reputation, Bush would play tennis games at an indoor court in the Senate Hart Office Building, away from prying eyes and cameras.

Former President George W. Bush understood the potential public-relations fallout of playing golf during a time of national crisis. Bush said it would send the “wrong signal” to continue playing golf while American soldiers were fighting and dying in Iraq, and vowed not to.

He said he decided to quit after the bombing of United Nations headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003. But liberal critics shamed him when they found video of him on the green two months after making his promise.

But Bush seemed well aware of the sport’s image during a time of crisis.

“During the BP spill, it may have been wise to avoid a couple rounds here and there,” said Brinkley.

“Every elected official must be mindful of how things that seem a part of everyday life will be looked at differently during times of crisis,” said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat from Ohio, who ran for president in 2008.