I learn today—belatedly—that Michelle Obama took a trip to Spain with her daughter. This is apparently controversial. Megan McArdle writes “What Was Michelle Obama Thinking?” And of course this is a topic tailor-made for Maureen Dowd.
Let me be clear. It does not matter where presidents or their wives go on vacation. IT DOES NOT MATTER. Presidential approval, election outcomes, support in Congress—nothing that does matter depends on where presidents go on vacation. It did not matter when Clinton apparently polled to figure out where he should go. It did not matter when Bush decamped to Crawford. It did not matter when the Obamas went to Martha’s Vineyard. It does not matter now.
Dowd writes:
In politics and pop culture, optics are all.
By that she means, “In politics and pop culture, optics are all that matters to me.”
You could not ask for a better distillation of why so much political commentary is so completely and utterly detached from what actually affects political outcomes. War and peace, economic prosperity and hard times, real scandals—these things pale beside the fact that the Obamas once went to New York City on a date!
If doctors were like Maureen Dowd, they would look at a patient who was unconscious, not breathing, and bleeding profusely, and say, “Oh my god, his shoelace is untied!”
David Axelrod tells Dowd: “not everything is political theater.” One thing that the Obama administration seems to realize—to its everlasting credit—is that the Beltway gossip that is Dowd’s and so many other’s fixation is of zero interest to the vast majority of Americans.
An unrelated postscript. Dowd suggests that, by taking this trip, Michelle Obama is somehow failing to support her husband:
The inimitable columnist Mary McGrory once said that if a first lady simply made her husband toast, that was enough, given how hard his job was.
And because his predecessor mucked things up so royally, President Obama’s job is ridiculously hard. But at moments when you think Michelle might make her husband toast, or better yet a martini, she’s often off on a girls’ trip…
…During the campaign, Michelle tried to offset her husband’s existential detachment with familial warmth. Now that he holds the world’s loneliest office, he needs that more than ever.
This is galling on many levels, but let me choose one. I will suggest to Maureen Dowd and others equally convinced of such insights that by now Barack and Michelle Obama probably know what they’re doing with this whole husband-and-wife thing. Indeed, if anything is worse than the political advice offered by the likes of Dowd, it is the marriage counseling.
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I’m sure Dowd knows this kind of baloney will get her a ton of hits. The only time people talk about her columns is when she’s wrong.
Ha! David Brooks made a similar comment on NPR a couple of weeks ago, talking about how the President needs to do for the Gulf what he’s doing for Maine in terms of tourism. He said something along the lines of, “I saw the President in Maine and thought wow, that’s really beautiful, let’s go to Maine and I bet a lot of other Americans thought that too.” I wondered how long you have to live in DC/Pundit-land to think that’s how Americans decide where to take their vacations.
In fairness, just because something doesn’t affect presidential approval ratings or votes doesn’t necessarily mean that it doesn’t “matter.” It’s entirely plausible that FDR’s fireside chats meant something to listeners who were out of work or waiting for news of a loved one deployed overseas. People may have been touched, inspired, or motivated to public service because of JFK’s or Reagan’s speeches, or the Moon landing, or Obama’s ’08 campaign. These things would be difficult for us to measure, but they would still matter.
That said, no, where the First Lady vacations really doesn’t matter.
Dowd’s knowledge of what makes a marriage successful is based on what? Not any personal experience she’s had. But the more important question is how the Times justifies letting her natter mindlessly across so much valuable Op-Ed real estate.
Seth, I didn’t claim that presidential approval etc. were the only things that matter. I said, “Presidential approval, election outcomes, support in Congress — nothing that does matter depends on where presidents go on vacation.” The first three things are only examples of things that do matter.
And the examples you bring up are non sequiturs in this case. The whole point of this ridiculous focus on presidential vacations is that vacations somehow affect voters and how they perceive the president.
I’m happy to admit that political scientists don’t measure everything that could matter, but that doesn’t seem too relevant here.
Two things. First, I agree with Seth: every “doesn’t matter” needs a “to ____.” Something can be entirely irrelevant to X, but moderately or even very important to Y.
Second, my reading of Dowd is that she often lets us know what Washingtonians are thinking. If that’s true — if it’s not just her own idiosyncratic missigas — then IMO she’s telling us something I want to know.
And, yeah, I think it’s vaguely possible that First Family vacation spots affect how Washingtonians think about them, but of course it’s much more likely that the causal arrow runs the other way — what Beltway people think about FF vacations is a function of what they already think about the FF.
The Obama Admin may (correctly) reject/ignore Maureen Dowd, but they seem to jump when Fox says “Jump!”
John, I think Seth’s only point is that persuasive moral leadership might mean something to people on the receiving end (fireside chats and the unemployed), even if that doesn’t actually lead to changes in political outcomes at the aggregate.
And because his predecessor mucked things up so royally, President Obama’s job is ridiculously hard. But at moments when you think Michelle might make her husband toast, or better yet a martini, she’s often off on a girls’ trip…
…During the campaign, Michelle tried to offset her husband’s existential detachment with familial warmth. Now that he holds the world’s loneliest office, he needs that more than ever.
Is it just me, or is Dowd really suggesting that she would *totally* make a better Mrs. Obama than Mrs. Obama? If she doesn’t have more self-restraint than to make that pitch in a national media outlet, she needs an editor who will stop her.
I dunno. Could be it’s a budget-driven complaint by the news divisions, who have to send someone to Spain to do coverage, and the aggravation that ensues when you have to decide who gets to go.
One thing I liked about Bush: he was the cause that so many pampered jades had to spend part of their summer in the armpit that was Crawford. Which was probably why he or Dick (“Bigtime”)picked it. Even then, none of them pointed out that it was a poser’s faux-ranch, or how Bush’s August vacations always seemed to coincide with the roll-out of a new Madden Football video game.
Trey – I think it was Joe Scarborough, not David Brooks, who discussed how the Obama vacation to Maine and how a similar vacation to the Gulf was a good idea.
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