'Barack Obama's dangerous obsession with golf'

So says the subhead in this column by Michelle Cottle in the New Republic. Cottle is calling for him to ditch the game.

One might surmise, however incorrectly, that she's calling for him to do so based on the criticism he has absorbed for the rounds of golf he's played in Hawaii in the aftermath of an attempt to blow up an airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas Day.

Instead, Cottle is asking him to give up what she calls "a dying game" for the sake of fulfilling his promise of "change we can believe in." She writes:

"Its venerable White House history notwithstanding, golf is a dubious pastime for any decent, sane person, much less for this particular president. Why would a leader vowing to shake up Washington--to alter the very nature of politics--sell his soul to a leisure activity that screams stodgy, hyperconventional Old Guard?"

One sign of where she was going appeared in a tease to the column. It read: "Barack Obama Has an Idiotic Obsession, and It Is Golf."

-- John Strege