Who Cares Where Obama Vacations?

What's more elitist, a Martha's Vineyard rental or a Texas ranch?
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 17, 2010 10:46 AM CDT
Who Cares Where Obama Vacations?
President Barack Obama watches as his wife and daughter play a round of arcade golf during a vacation in Panama City Beach, Fla., Saturday, Aug. 14, 2010.   (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

So President Obama likes to vacation in "exotic" places like the state he happened to grow up in, and Michelle Obama recently jetted off to Spain. Why does America care so much, asks Anne Applebaum, who blames the Kennedys' idyllic days in Hyannisport for starting it all. Ironically, it's the two recent presidents who don't own vacation properties—Obama and Bill Clinton—who've taken the most heat.

"Why, exactly, is borrowing or renting someone's house more elitist than owning one? Why is Martha's Vineyard snobbier than Kennebunkport, or even a private Texas ranch?" Applebaum asks in the Washington Post. Let's let the Obamas take their vacation (and let's not pretend that a presidential trip to the Gulf counts as "vacation"). "Let them go wherever they want. Let them do whatever they want. Let's not talk about them for a few weeks. This is what mid-August is for." (More President Obama stories.)

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