Monday’s New York Times hinted at a new golfing controversy for Obama from the Left: Why are you golfing on California courses during this drought? It was buried inside the paper.
On Monday’s CBS This Morning, co-host Charlie Rose just briefly mentioned it:
President Obama this morning is back at the White House. He spent part of Father`s Day weekend playing golf at some of his favorite spots outside Palm Springs, California, but that move is drawing criticism. Some consider golf courses a drain on scarce water supplies as summer bring-- begins in a state ravaged by drought.
The other networks skipped it. The report that followed, by Ben Tracy, never mentioned Obama, with the controversy left for the golf-course managers. The Times story by Gardiner Harris mostly lined up lefties to complain.
“President Obama needs to take a mulligan and rethink golfing in Palm Springs in the middle of a drought,” said Erich Pica, the president of Friends of the Earth, using a golfing term that refers to a do-over after a bad shot. “It takes copious amounts of water to maintain a golf course, and it just sends the wrong message to the people of California just as they are being asked to cut back on water use.”
....Ed Osann, a senior policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s water team, said the golf course industry in the Palm Springs region must do far more to reduce water consumption and switch to more sustainable water sources.
“We don’t advocate that any golfer stop playing golf because of the drought,” Mr. Osann said. “But drought or no drought, all landscape water use in California, including golf courses, needs to get more efficient.”
And, then this kicker for the story’s end:
Durwood Zaelke, the president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, said the president could have used his vacation to remind golfers that unless things changed, they might need only a sand wedge in their bags, because “the game will soon be played in one giant sand trap.”
