How could the Obamas relax on the New England coast, they fume, when the nation is fighting two wars, oil blobs are washing ashore in the Gulf of Mexico, and unemployment remains a stubbornly high 9.5 percent? The Republican National Committee last week launched a snarky website cataloging the president’s recreational activities, including his Maine trip, under the heading: “Play Golf or Save the Gulf?’’
Unfair or not, the criticism illustrates how the length, locale, and style of the president’s vacation is loaded with symbolic implications and potential for political trouble, specialists say. This time around, the beaches of the Vineyard could make a jarring, split-screen contrast with scenes from the gulf.
Full story: Vacations are prickly issue for presidents – The Boston Globe