Obama: Memorial Day Vacation, Golf?

Obama is a wartime president.

I tend to forget that. He doesn't act like one.

We are still at war. (Someone alert the lib media.)

Less than two weeks ago, on May 18, the American death toll in Afghanistan passed 1000.

[T]he toll of American dead in Afghanistan passed 1,000, after a suicide bomb in Kabul killed at least five United States service members. Having taken nearly seven years to reach the first 500 dead, the war killed the second 500 in fewer than two. A resurgent Taliban active in almost every province, a weak central government incapable of protecting its people and a larger number of American troops in harm’s way all contributed to the accelerating pace of death.

The mayhem of last August, coming as Afghans were holding national elections, provided a wake-up call to many Americans about the deteriorating conditions in the country. Forty-seven American G.I.’s died that month, more than double the previous August, making it the deadliest month in the deadliest year of the war.

We don't hear much about the number of dead anymore. We certainly don't hear or read full lists of their names. Garry Trudeau doesn't bother to devote his comic strip to the American war dead for Memorial Day. Such a stunt is so last administration.

Remember in 2005, when Nightline's Ted Koppel "honored the fallen" by reading the names and showing photographs of hundreds of service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan?

What's Nightline doing this year on Memorial Day? A rerun of the Jesse James interview?

And what will Obama be doing on Memorial Day?

Last year, his first Memorial Day as president, Obama managed to participate in ceremonies in the morning and still spend FOUR hours in the afternoon playing golf.

This year, Obama will be vacationing in Chicago with his family over the Memorial Day weekend.

This weekend, President Obama will skip Memorial Day services at Arlington National Cemetery, and instead he will take his family to Chicago for rest and relaxation. The gesture has rankled many on the right and caused the left to swing into full ‘defend Obama’ mode. However, the fact remains that during a time of war, it is extraordinary that the Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces would choose not to be at Arlington on this solemn occasion.

First, it must be said that the president is not skipping out on his official duties entirely. At the start of the weekend, the president will travel to Louisiana to survey the response to oil spill; only his second trip to the region since the disaster over a month ago. And on Monday, the president will deliver remarks at the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, IL. In between these duties he will spend a “casual weekend with friends” and then fly home in time to make a White House tribute to Paul McCartney on Wednesday evening.

So what’s the big deal? As leftist columnist David Corn writes: “[D]oes it matter if Obama throws some leaves on a tomb?” Well, apparently to liberals, it does not matter and to Corn, even wondering why the president would miss the occasion in itself dishonors lost soldiers. Seriously. Somehow, wanting the president to appropriately honor the troops who paid the ultimate price is chalked up as “political ammo.”

...To indifferent liberals, this solemn remembrance is merely throwing “leaves on a tomb” and this controversy is the manufactured delusions of “conservative wingnuts.” The Democratic Party’s sister organization ’Media Matters’ has been full throated in trying to turn this controversy around on the president’s detractors. But to veterans, and their families, regardless of political beliefs, this is a symbolic break in tradition that can only be viewed as casual indifference.

So Obama will not be at Arlington to throw "leaves on a tomb," but he will say a few words at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery. Maybe he'll throw a few leaves there to mark the solemn occasion.

I suspect afterwards he'll have plenty of time to hit the links and uphold his Memorial Day tradition -- golf.