With the arrival of summertime, the White House is gearing up for that annual political ritual—the criticism of the Obamas for taking an extended family vacation with their daughters. According to a report in the Boston Globe, it looks like Martha’s Vineyard will again be on the Obama itinerary, as the first family is reportedly checking out a house in Oak Bluffs, near Farm Neck. Oak Bluffs is a longtime vacation spot for African-Americans on the Vineyard, with its Inkwell Beach serving as a popular meeting place.
While the Obamas previously stayed in Chilmark, in a house known as Blue Heron Farm, they had to find another spot because that house has been sold, according to the Globe.
When the first lady and the girls have vacationed in previous summers, it has drawn the scorn of conservative critics, accusing them of insensitivity for daring to venture outside of the White House for family vacations while the country was in the midst of recession. The conservative Weekly Standard has already gone after the Obamas for being on a vacation-a-month schedule so far for 2013.
In addition, the first lady and her daughters are planning at least one family foreign trip, when they are scheduled to accompany the president on his trip to Ireland for a G8 summit in June. Michelle Obama is also planning to accompany her husband on a trip to Africa later in the summer—no word on whether Sasha and Malia will also be going.
As the Obamas deal with attacks on their travel schedule, Michelle Obama now has this to contend with: a report in the National Journal alleging that she may have dated Treasury Department Inspector General J. Russell George when they were students together at Harvard Law School in the late 1980s, before she met her husband.
George, 49, has been the subject of intense scrutiny in recent days because of the scandals involving IRS agents targeting conservative groups for further investigation on their tax-exempt applications. George recently testified in two congressional hearings.
George told the National Journal that he and Michelle went out together with other students, since they were both active in the Black Law Students Association. He said that to proclaim they were dating “is overstating it.”
“Michelle was a lovely person, and down to earth,” he said. He remembered that when Black Law Student Association members “went out for pizza; we would go out together.”
“Don’t get me in trouble,” George told the Washington newspaper.
But Virginia Republican Rep. Tom Davis, who worked with George as staff director of the House Oversight committee in the late 1990s and early 200s—the same committee that questioned George on Wednesday—told the National Journal that the relationship was more than just friendly.
“I think he actually dated Michelle at one point,” Davis told the National Journal.
