Barack Obama on golfing after issuing a statement on James Foley’s beheading: “I should’ve anticipated the optics”

As has been well reported and criticized by people on both sides of the aisle, after issuing a statement on the beheading of American journalist, James Foley, Barack Obama immediately went to the golf course to get in another round.

This had even the most ardent supporters of the President baffled as they wondered how he could be so cold and calloused as to not see it fit not to take in another round of golf after so serious and tragic an issue.

On ‘Meet The Press’ earlier today Chuck Todd asked Barack Obama about this and this is what he had to say:

“But there’s no doubt that, after having talked to the families — where it was hard for me to hold back tears listening to the pain that they were going through, after the statement that I made — that I should’ve anticipated the optics,” Obama admitted. “That’s part of the job.”

I find that statement to be quite interesting indeed because as anyone who has ever tried their hand at the game of golf knows; golf is probably more of a mental game than it is a physical game.

If your mind is not in the right place you cannot golf–or at least cannot golf well–you have to clear your mind of all distractions, slow your pace, relax, and concentrate on nothing but your next shot.

So I find it interesting that while he regrets the “optics” of golfing after issuing the statement he does not regret his decision to go golfing. This says quite a bit about Barack Obama’s mindset in my opinion.

While he claims he was almost brought to tears after hearing the story of family members he was still able to put it all out of his mind and attend to what he apparently thinks is more important.

Supporters of the President claim that golfing is his release, his way of dealing with the stress of the job, but I have a different take on it. I find him to be cold-hearted and uncaring, self-absorbed and detached. Just the fact that he is now only worried about the “optics” after it backfired on him shows me that he is more concerned about how he is perceived than he was about the actual beheading. How else could he possibly get his mind in the right place to golf after this unless it really did not affect him the in the same manner it affected most people?

But Barack Obama was not done there as he lamented the “theater” of politics. Here is what he said:

“Well, it’s not something that always comes naturally to me,” Obama conceded. “But it matters. And I’m mindful of that.”

That statement is half-true: he is right in saying that he is mindful of the theatrics but he is wrong about it not always coming natural to him. This is the man who delayed the rescue of James Foley by thirty days–which allowed ISIS to move the doomed journalist before he could be rescued–so that the rescue attempt would conveniently fall on the Fourth of July.

But theatrics did not play any role in this deadly decision, right?