Fore!

No, not fore. Make it 40 - or actually, 40+. That's how many rounds of golf obama has played since he became president (as of July 16, 2010).

President Barack Obama  has played a remarkable 41 rounds of golf since becoming president, easily outpacing his predecessor...

With the excursions lasting on average at least five hours, the president has devoted a total of more than 200 hours to golf, not counting time spent on the White House putting green. That’s the equivalent of twenty five eight-hour work days, or five work weeks spent smacking golf balls.

The former community organizer’s 41 trips around the links ... compares to only 24 total outings for former President George W. Bush, according to statistics compiled by White House chronicler Mark Knoller  of CBS News. Bush, whose golf outings were used to help deride him as a callow, lazy, rich boy, played his 24th and last round on Oct. 13, 2003, saying he was ending the practice out of respect for the families of Americans killed in Iraq.

Image management is so much easier when the mainstream media is on your side.

Since the April 20 explosion that killed 11 rig workers and started the Gulf oil spill, Obama has teed up seven times, according to White House Dossier’s count. This includes back to back sessions April 23 and 24 while on vacation at the Grove Park Resort & Spa in Asheville, NC, just days after the crisis began.

From a period stretching from April 3 to May 22 of this year, the president went golfing eight of nine weekends.

He went out only once in June when, with the Gulf of Mexico slowly becoming the new U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve and accusations of presidential inattention at their height, White House image counselors appeared to think the golf needed scaling back. But he’s back with a vengeance, having made his way out on the course both weekends so far this month.

And this doesn't even include his numerous other posh outings as chronicled here.

One of his companions on nearly every outing is Marvin Nicholson, the affable, White House trip  director. Nicholson, a former  “body man” to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), is the perfect guy for getting away from it all, having worked as a golf caddy, a bartender, and in a windsurfing shop – where he met Kerry.

Oh my aching butt. This guy sounds like the epitome of the idle rich frat boy that Bush was portrayed as. What a resume - caddy, bartender, windsurfer, White House aide... how does one climb that career ladder?

I don't mind the president - any president - taking a little R&R. It's a tough job, and the guy (or gal) sitting in the Oval Office is certainly entitled to a little down time. But obama's carrying it to an extreme. Given all the urgent issues facing this country, from the economy to the war against terrorism to immigration to nuclear proliferation to unstable regimes like Iraq and North Korea to - well, you get the idea - I'd sure like to see the person in charge focused on making progress in solving those problems, not worrying about his handicap or who to invite for the next White House concert.

I guess that's what happens when an unqualified ill-experienced bozo with no understanding of how the real world works weasels his way into the White House...