How Barack Obama spends his leisure time is the least of our worries

I don’t know if it’s a longstanding American tradition to waste political discussion on topics that really don’t matter, but in the last decade or so, we seem to have really honed this skill:

• The frequency and cost of President Obama’s golfing trips is a favorite topic.
• Apparently he doesn’t lift heavy enough weights at the gym.
• Any time the Obama family takes a vacation, the rumblings of criticism instantly begin, with left and right constantly quibbling over whose President took pricier trips.
• Michelle Obama, too, is a frequent target of criticism. Her dresses cost too much. She eats her food too quickly.
• And earlier this month we hit a new low, with multiple nationally-known commentators tactlessly suggesting (based on her appearance) that the First Lady is actually a man.
• There were even complaints when Michelle Obama Skyped into the Oscars, despite the fact Laura Bush and Ronald Reagan both participated in Oscar ceremonies during their own time in the White House.

The current obsession is President Obama’s decision not to visit the United States’ southern border to—let’s be realistic—do photo ops while making some vague comments about immigration policy.

Now, I’m far from a fan of the President—but this critique just doesn’t make sense. It especially doesn’t make sense after all the aforementioned complaining about the cost of his other trips.

Ironically, Texas Governor Rick Perry, who did go to the border, managed to squeeze in an awful lot of photo ops despite declaring, “I’m not interested in photo ops.” He even tweeted the photos…on multiple Twitter accounts. If that’s not a photo op, I don’t know what is.

But here’s the thing: None of this truly matters.

And spending time talking about this kind of frivolous stuff distracts from the very real abuses of liberty and power the Obamas impose on us when they’re not on vacation.

Honestly, I’d like to see the President on vacation more often. At least when he’s on the golf course, he can’t completely override the rule of law with his pen and his phone! Let him vacation all day, every day if it means he’ll stop expanding the size and scope of government at home and abroad. Maybe if he’s occupied elsewhere, the rest of us can get busy actually making our communities and the world more prosperous, safe, and free.

Now, there is ample room to criticize the personality cult that surrounds the White House. The president is not our national dad or the “boss of the country,” as some have bizarrely suggested, and a healthy cutback in the celebrity worship is long overdue. America often has an obsession with the presidency that isn’t conducive to reasoned critiques of any administration’s policies.

The glorification of the presidency is out of hand. We’re supposed to have an elected public servant in the White House, not a king. But the easy freedom with which Barack Obama and George W. Bush have wielded power is a troubling continuation of bipartisan rule by executive fiat.

As Senator Rand Paul said in his 2013 drone filibuster, “Every four years we elect a new criminal because that’s become the precise job description.”

But the vast majority of the shallow and petty critiques of Obama don’t address the larger problem of the imperial presidency. They don’t address larger abuses of executive power. They don’t highlight the problems with a cult of celebrity that surrounds any president—instead, they feed it.

Ultimately, these complaints about the President golfing or not visiting the border aren’t about principle, they’re about cheapest and lowest forms of partisanship.

If the tables were turned, and a Republican president made the exact same decisions on how to spend his time, I am certain that many of those leveling criticisms at Obama would eagerly explain that golfing is a good way for the President to recharge and refocus because his job is difficult—or that whether he visits the border is irrelevant, because he’s busy working on an actual policy solution instead.

Look, I get it: Sometimes it’s fun to go for the low-hanging fruit in politics. But when we make a habit of it, we are the ones taking the focus off serious policy debate. And let’s be honest, some of this stuff (like mocking the First Lady’s appearance) isn’t even low-hanging fruit—it’s just rude and embarrassing.

Does it really matter that the President stayed in a $500 hotel room when the national debt is over $17 trillion? Yeah, every little bit helps, but we have far bigger fish to fry.

Obama’s actions as president have been, and continue to be, monumentally bad. How he spends his leisure time should be the least of our worries.