One sight Obama will see at the Vineyard: "Miss me yet?" T shirts

OAK BLUFFS — Sharky’s Cantina is once again mixing its “Obamarita’’ cocktail, with tastes of the president’s favorite fruits, and the Locker Room on Circuit Avenue has restocked the “I vacationed with Obama’’ T-shirts.

But as Martha’s Vineyard prepares for the first family’s visit tomorrow — their second summer stay here since President Obama took office — the excitement that marked last summer’s arrival of the fresh-faced commander in chief seems to have ebbed like the tide.

Obama, now a tested president burdened by war and economic upheaval, may well get the peace and quiet he has been seeking as he settles in for a 10-day stay, presumably at the historic Blue Heron Farm in Chilmark where he stayed last year, local residents said.

“I have no desire to go chase him or see him,’’ said Elaine Allen, owner of the Laughing Bear clothing shop on Circuit Avenue, one of the few stores to feature a poster in its window welcoming the first family this year.

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One barometer of the plunge in excitement has been the sale of Obama-themed T-shirts, which designers had been banking on after the craze of last year. Clothing labeled with the president’s name sold by the thousands, helping to salvage a tough economic year for the island.


But this year’s T-shirt sales are much less brisk, merchants say.

“Last year, Obama gave you goose bumps, but I don’t think you’re going to see that this year,’’ said Alex McCluskey, co-owner of the Locker Room, who sold more than 4,000 “I vacationed with Obama’’ T-shirts last year. But so far this year, he said, his hot item is T-shirts of former President Bush asking, “Miss me yet?"

For some reason, IBD finds Obama is "an unserious president"

Leadership: As Americans suffer economically, President Obama golfs, vacations, campaigns, appears on a frivolous talk show — and vacations some more. Gee, don't we have a war and other problems to attend to?

Will history record that Barack Obama's only great achievement as president was getting his golf handicap down to the teens? The president played more than two dozen rounds of golf in his first year in office — as many as George W. Bush did over his entire eight years.

This week, he traveled to New York City to be swooned at on ABC's daytime gal fluff-fest "The View." It led Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell to remark, "I think there should be a little bit of dignity to the presidency... I think the president of the United States has to go on serious shows."

The city's Transit Authority warned that between 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. at least 32 bus lines in Manhattan and the Bronx "could be either severely delayed or detoured" as a result of the president's trip.

And while tying up traffic in the Big Apple, the president also headlined fundraisers at the Four Seasons Hotel and at a big donor's home. This week has him on for two other moneymaking events for the Democratic National Committee too. He will soon travel to Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and Austin for more.

With the unemployment rate near double digits, in spite of over $800 billion in a misguided Keynesian stimulus, and two-thirds of Americans believing the country is headed in the wrong direction — that direction being global decline — the man elected on a platform of "Change" with a capital C seems to think his job is to neglect his job and have a blast.

His vacation in Bar Harbor, Maine is followed by another vacation in that elitest of lefty locales, Martha's Vineyard, where he can tee off on Mink Meadows, a "classic 1936 Wayne Stiles design" that "is a challenge to both novices and low-handicappers."

Next month, the first lady and nine-year-old Sasha will meet the king and queen of Spain on yet another vacation.

At taxpayer expense, this president flies to Broadway to take the first lady on a date.

Among the stars he's summoned to the White House to play court jester are Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Emmylou Harris, Herbie Hancock, Elvis Costello, Jerry Seinfeld, "three of country music's biggest acts" including Charley Pride, and earlier this month a Broadway cavalcade of stars that was "the sixth in a series of evenings celebrating the music that helped to shape America."

Why so much luxury as so many suffer and there are so many monumental problems to solve? Because, according to the president, "part of what gets us through tough times is music, the arts, the ability to capture that essential kernel of ourselves, that part of us that sings even when times are hard."

Millions of Americans have little to sing about as they seek to re-enter the work force and earn a few kernels.

Our present challenges demand more than a part-time president.