Free Republic

President Obama's second shot at an August vacation looks to be as star-crossed as the first — and his efforts to balance his presidential duties with a summer respite just as tricky. The shocking news of James Foley’s execution broke as Air Force One landed at Cape Cod on Tuesday night. The president offered his condolences to the American journalist's family and angrily denounced Islamic State militants the following day. Then he went off for a round of golf — his seventh in ten days at Martha's Vineyard so far. It wasn't the first time this month Obama has made...

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) suggested President Obama should cut his vacation short in light of the apparent murder of a U.S. journalist by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Rogers on Wednesday said Obama should follow the lead of British Prime Minister David Cameron who reportedly returned from vacation to lead a meeting on the threat posed by the group. "The optics of being on vacation and not coming away from that vacation, I just think are bad," Rogers said on Fox News. "That is why I think [Cameron] is going back. He is going to...

The vacationing commander-in-chief, after promising a relentless hunt for the terrorist butchers of a U.S. journalist, teed off on a Martha’s Vineyard golf course just a short time later. “Obama is more dedicated to golfing than he is to defending the nation,” sniped Liz Cheney, daughter of the former GOP vice president, via Twitter. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius also took a swing at Obama. “I know in Western countries, this is vacation period,” he said, according to The Wall Street Journal. “But when people are dying, you must return from vacation.”

Americans can only pray that President Obama was as serious as a drone strike when he vowed the United States would “see that justice is done” for the beheading of American journalist James Foley. While his anger was palpable, Obama’s resolve to rain death on the savages of ISIS was far from clear. Worse, he signaled disdain for the gravity of the moment by going from the presidential podium straight to a vacation round of golf.

Shortly after delivering a statement denouncing the execution of American journalist James Foley by Islamist militants in Iraq, President Obama hit the golf course on Wednesday. Obama completed the statement at a school in Martha’s Vineyard where he is vacationing, before arriving minutes later at a local golf club. The president planned to play a round with former Miami Heat star Alonzo Mourning, private equity investor Glenn Hutchins, and longtime friend Cy Walker‎, according to the White House.