House Speaker John Boehner and Vice President Joe Biden shared a nice moment moment while they waited on the President’s arrival last night, and because they didn’t know the mics were live, we are privy to their very real and pretty cute pre-show chatter. Apparently Boehner shot a pretty good round of golf during his vacation!

The two greeted one another with an actually pretty aggressive hug, and a laugh about Boehner’s barbarian status. ”We’ve got a heck of a lot of work to do,” began Biden before Boehner interrupted, eager to share news of his “round of the decade” with the ever-friendly VP. “That’s incredible!” exclaimed Biden, not seeming to mind the change of topic.

It is a little disconcerting to hear these two joking so casually about golf while Americans watching at home waited to hear what Obama’s speech might mean for them, but it’s probably a good sign that these two can get along.

Watch for yourself below:

(h/t TPM)

CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin reported on the situation in D.C. and New York, where the earthquake was felt (it originated in Virginia), and noted that there was not, in fact, too much of a situation to be concerned about. She then turned to Dan Lothian, who was traveling with the President in Martha’s Vineyard, and he reported on the President’s work– he was receiving regular updates on the situation in D.C. while continuing a golf game that happened to be in progress at the time. Accompanying this report was footage of the President strolling the golf grounds, chatting on his telephone. Lothian added towards the end that the President was also getting reports on the extremely dramatic, unpredictable situation in Libya.

Anyone who knows anything about politics can readily admit that the President doesn’t really have the sort of power to do anything meaningful to respond to a scary natural disaster that, at press time, has done little damage greater than causing havoc in kitchens coastwide. On paper, the CNN report proved that the President was doing everything he could. That does nothing to justify the unfortunate optics of having the President appear on vacation enjoying himself while many in the country are in mild fear– nor does it justify the way the Libyan situation is presented in the footage, as an afterthought to a minor but local threat, because it is just so out of hand and so far away.

President Obama already has a track record of coming under siege for playing too much golf on the right, and the fact that the President was doing so when the earthquakes hit was not lost on many conservatives. His figure ambling across a golf course is now the image the rest of the world is seeing next to (highly unlikely, but understandable) concerns that an American power plant could go the way of Fukushima, next to images of American journalists getting grazed by bullets on Muammar Gaddafi‘s home turf. Facts are very stubborn little rascals, but it’s easy for a sharp propagandist to smokescreen them by simply comparing the above image to, say, this one.

Moderates and liberals will be sure to laugh at the idea that the President should have been doing anything other than taking phone calls at the time the earthquake hit, and are already doing so. And advertising attacking the President for playing too much golf, especially in this context would be sure to receive its fair share of ridicule for harping on an issue that has no impact on the average America. But the President is up for reelection against a team notorious for their ability to render a capable, hard-working leader ridiculous based on silly vacation images, and the footage has a good year to lose its current context and enter an attack ad that spans other issues and complaints conservatives may find worthier. If conservatives were grasping at straws before with the “Canadian” Obama bus (that the Secret Service purchased to save money), there is a near guarantee that we will see something like the 2004 anti-John Kerry “Windsurfing” ad in 2004.

Of course, at this point the “damage” is done, and any attempt to end his vacation early or look like he is working harder will only be interpreted by enemies as the President once again “caving” to the other side. Not to mention that it is entirely legitimate for the Commander in Chief to be golfing while on a previously scheduled vacation during an event of no real significance (whether he should be working to care a bit more about the Libyan situation is beside the point, as the early criticism pertains more to the earthquake). But the optics are so wrong out of context, and so ripe for the picking by opposition, that it will be a surprise if Americans don’t get used to seeing it air between their favorite TV shows this time next year.

The segment via CNN below:

Carter was on the ground at the golf tournament Tiger Woods is currently attempting a comeback at, but he wasn’t able to get much in in terms of what was up with Woods. It all went downhill after the first question, “do you play golf?”, in what appeared to be a quick but manageable delay. After the fourth or fifth attempt at communication, it was clear it wasn’t quite the most manageable of delays. Carter tried to begin explaining the situation with caddie Stevie Williams, only to be left adrift calling “Joe? Stevie?” until both reporters acknowledge the delay has rifted through them (at the beginning of the segment, he called the anchor “John,” so the name salad being thrown out there wasn’t exactly adding to the technically-addled coherence here). It’s just like yelling to your mom on a subway platform, but on national TV.

What makes it particularly funny (and likely made it particularly frustrating for the reporters) is that this isn’t exactly category 5 hurricane coverage– there’s no overt reason for a technical malfunction here. The malfunction was fixed enough to finish up the segment by the end, though, and they were allowed to conclude the discussion. We can’t imagine we’d be half as calm or professional as these two during a segment like this, so a tip of the hat to them.

The segment via CNN below:

Mika asked David, “if you had to golf with three Republicans in Congress who would you choose” and also asked which Republican “would you not play with under any circumstance?” David jumped to answer the latter, saying Cantor, because “I don’t care for him, if I may be blunt.” When prompted further by some around the table, David suggested “the hair is part of it. The politics just a smidge.” The rest of the lengthy conversation was much more fun, with David showing clips of the new season of his show and humorously demanding credit for inventing the coffee lid over thirty years ago.

Fans of Curb Your Enthusiasm are familiar with David’s left-leaning ways. In fact there was an episode where David finally won over a woman he was pursuing for an entire season, only to discover she had picture of former President George W. Bush framed in her dressing room and David hilariously lost all interest in her. Yet still, his apparent unwillingness to ever play golf with someone simply because he disagrees with their politics seems uncharacteristically not funny for the comedian.

Watch the clip from MSNBC below:

Trump was Eric Bolling‘s first guest on tonight’s Follow the Money, where he discussed the economy and his perspective on the free market, as well as the current budget fight in Congress. On energy, Trump stuck mainly to the script he has had for the past few months, arguing that “China has been eating out lunch,” partly due to the fact that they are “going heavy into coal, whereas the environmental restrictions make it almost impossible for us to do the coal thing anymore” despite the United States being “the Saudi Arabia of coal.” He also noted that America has invested little in natural gas and other alternative sources of fuel besides oil, and that this would ultimately lead to serious economic problems if the nation doesn’t end its dependency on oil.

Bolling then asked Trump to give President Obama some advice going into the budget talks and beyond. Trump’s advice was simple: “the President has to do it himself.” One such example of “doing it himself” that Trump noted positively was the golf game President Obama played with House Speaker John Boehner. “The golf little [sic] match that they had was not so bad a thing– golf is an amazing game, you get friendly with people,” he explained. He noted that many of his friends called him to bash the President for the move, but that he thought it was “great.” “You get friendly with people on a golf course like you can’t anywhere else,” Trump explained, suggesting that personal relationships help foster good politics outside of the halls of power.

Capping off his effusive praise for the President’s golf initiative, Trump reiterated that “I’ve lost so much confidence in the people on the Republican side,” part of the reason he declined to campaign for the Republican nomination.

The segment via Fox Business below:

In an interview with Neil Cavuto on the Fox Business Network, Quayle spoke extensively on the Japan crisis and its impact on nuclear energy, and defended President Obama.

“Believe me, he’s in constant communication with what’s going on. I mean, what do you want him to do, stay in his house and be on the phone with the ambassador to Japan the whole time?”

Earlier this week, Trump had said it was “inappropriate” for Obama to be seen golfing:

“When Japan is crashing, when you have nuclear problems the likes of which maybe the world so far has never seen – for him to be playing golf simultaneously with that happening – you’re talking about the day of and the day after – to be playing golf, I think is very inappropriate.”

Watch Quayle and Cavuto here, from Fox Business:

President Obama can’t catch a break on his holiday vacation. First the birth certificate controversy reignited, then his phone call regarding Michael Vick got plenty of people angry, and now just when he thinks he can enjoy a quiet and relaxing game of golf, he almost gets smacked by a golf ball.

Witness the near-miss at the very beginning of the clip, then for any golf enthusiasts, enjoy seeing Obama’s swing as he continues to play.

Watch the clip from ABC News below:

Coulter was on America Live with host Megyn Kelly today to discuss the White House’s strongly-worded criticism of Hayward for racing his yacht, “Bob”, at the JP Morgan Asset Round the Island Race. The President received less flack for going golfing on the same day which, to Coulter, was hypocritical. “You go on vacation for a job well done,” she argued, not in the middle of the crisis, and noted that “it reminds me that President Bush gave up golfing after the Iraq war.”

Kelly added that the criticism on the President was “an image problem, in addition to an actual problem,” rattling off fundraisers, vacation days, sport-related ceremonies, and concerts that the President has attended in the past few months, to which Coulter responded that she could “make a stronger case for Tony Hayward taking a vacation than Obama,” though he got his bashing, too.

But Coulter didn’t have bad things to say about everyone! Mocking the President’s golf skills, Coulter quipped, “how about making Tiger Woods president? Or Lady Gaga– no, wait, she works too hard.”

Video below:

In the past few days, Republicans have started using President Obama’s golf excursions as a metaphor for being, as Hannity claims, “out of touch” with the plight of the American people. During yesterday’s press conference, White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton defended the presidential golf outings, claiming that “the President ought to have a little time to clear his mind.” Last night Hannity had on as guests to his show Democratic strategist Michael Brown and Kate Obenshain from Young America’s Foundation who both appear in the following segment (in which Obenshain and Hannity gang up on Brown.)

The problem isn’t in the remarkably predictable nature of the anti-Obama rhetoric. The segment comes up short because the basic premise of this critique is that President Obama has spent an inordinate amount of time ignoring the tasks at hand by taking on the normal Presidential duties that come with the office. Photo ops with the US Soccer team and the Duke basketball team are not a real problem with this administration (as Hannity implies.) There are real issues on which one can criticize this administration (namely specific policies in which one disagrees), but the notion that this White House has taken any more days off — or done any more press events — than those administrations that came before it is a shallow critique at best, disingenuous at worst.

GOP leadership should proceed with caution if it wants to make a round of golf the litmus test for the President or any other elected official. Golf is a sport of a privileged socioeconomic status, and Republicans railing against the President hitting the links simply doesn’t pass the sniff test.

The newly-respectable news organization reports Woods admitted to 121 affairs during his marriage, but the one that sealed the divorce fate was when it got personal.

Reports the Enquirer:

Tiger Woods has admitted that he cheated with as many as 120 women while married to Elin!

Yet, while coming clean during therapy, he failed to mention the one-night stand he knew would destroy his shaky marriage.

The serial cheater hid from therapists – and Elin — his most shocking conquest – Number 121 – say sources.

So, wow.

But what about this mystery #121? Sources point to it being Raychel Coudriet, who was Woods’ neighbor’s daughter. She would have been 21-years-old.

The complete story isn’t online – so you have to pick it up at your local newsstand or supermarket check-out. But the Enquirer has introduced a fresh, new angle to the Woods saga…just as the golf superstar tees off his 2nd tournament of the year today.

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Here’s the clip via Fox News’ Kimberly Guilfoyle, looped to make it more satisfying:

TMZ is reporting he will return to golf next month, while Charlie Gasparino, recently of Fox Business Network, reports he will first make a public apology, likely Friday.

TMZ wrote:

As we first reported, a source who works for Tiger Woods told TMZ Tiger planned to play at Tavistock in March — a PGA event between the golf pros at Isleworth and the neighboring Lake Nona pros.

They also said he would play in the Masters.

Gasparino was supposed to make his FBN debut on Monday, but instead was on-air this afternoon with his scoop on the breaking news.

Said Gasparino (“the newest member of the Fox Business team,” said anchor Liz Claman):

I have been speaking with sponsors who say they have been alerted by his reps that a public apology from Tiger Woods is imminent. It could occur as early as tomorrow sometime around 11am, and that there’s going to be an announcement of the public apology that will be done at a press conference some time tonight. Now like I said, we don’t have this yet from Tiger’s representatives.

Back in December we put the odds for Woods breaking his silence by press conference at 12:1.

> Update: What the hell? Gregg Jarrett of FNC reports:

He’s apparently not going to be answering questions from the media, who will not even be allowed in the same room. They’re going to be – by the way only credentialed reporters, and not quite sure what that means – they’re going to be in an adjacent room watching a closed feed. Now this is going to be a conversation that Tiger’s going to be having with a group of friends, colleagues and close associates.

Here’s the FBN story:

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With the coming new year, however, POTUS has a prime opportunity to regroup, reload, and revamp his image. He could start by ditching golf.

Seriously. Its venerable White House history notwithstanding, golf is a dubious pastime for any decent, sane person, much less for this particular president. Why would a leader vowing to shake up Washington–to alter the very nature of politics–sell his soul to a leisure activity that screams stodgy, hyperconventional Old Guard?

Also, apparently Obama is not the first president to be criticized for an obsession with the “elite” sport: Eisenhower was “mocked” by none other than man of the people J.F.K. for his penchant for golf (Kennedy was a closet player).

I thought, therefore, that it made sense to see how they did. In the spirit of the end of the decade, I looked back at their first Year In Ideas released in December of 2001. Heavy on concepts that emerged following the terrorist attacks (such as “American Imperialism, Embraced”) and the Internet (“Populist Editing”), the series was born at a fascinating moment in American history.

While I’m not a scientist or a fashion designer, I did my best to gauge how much impact each “idea” actually had – if, in essence, it was viable. By my count, of the 77 ideas presented, over half (40 or so) are still relevant in 2009. About 30% aren’t. Many others I considered “maybes” – I just don’t know enough to make the call.

Maybe you do. Check out the full list below, complete with links to the original article, and share your wisdom. The Internet was made for arguments.

We showed you one on Tuesday, but they just keep coming. And it’s enough to terrify The Grey Lady: “Welcome to the new world of Maybe Journalism,” begins the ethical scare piece, “a best guess at the news as it might well have been, rendered as a video game and built on a bed of pure surmise.” Basically, it might not have happened this way, so it’s not news. It’s just sort of like America’s Most Wanted.

A computer-generated “news report” of the Tiger Woods S.U.V. crash — complete with a robotic-looking simulation of Mr. Woods’s wife chasing him with a golf club — has become a top global online video of the moment, perhaps offering a glimpse at the future of journalism, tabloid division. (No matter that the police said she was using the club to release Mr. Woods from the car.)

But that’s not the problem! “The video is one of more than 20 the company releases a day, often depicting events that no journalist actually witnessed — and that may not have even occurred.” A-ha! So, much like the internet in general, these three-dimensional, jokey, animated Asian YouTube videos represent a threat to real news. Or they’re just hilarious — there’s always that.

Keith Olbermann, though, is not a fan:

“I am awestruck by this,” the MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, who had fun with the Woods animation on his show, wrote in an e-mail message. He was both appalled by the video and convinced that it was a harbinger of the future. “Yes,” he wrote, “this will be done by somebody, in this country, within six months.”

Ken A. Bode, also believes them to be dangerous:

Ken A. Bode, a former national political correspondent for NBC News who is the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s ombudsman, corrected a reporter who called the Woods video a “re-enactment.”

“That’s a creation,” he said. “How does any Taiwanese journalist know what happened between Tiger Woods and his wife?”

And so it gets cultural. But the story of the company, Next Media, is fascinating, as is anything that can get newspeople’s panties in a twist. To be sure, there are ethical issues at play here, but watching these clips, it’s hard to take any of it seriously. Plus, isn’t this The Age of TMZ anyway?

Do yourself a favor and watch this:

Forget Twitter, at some point we may have our news stories Machinimated.

(h/t Seth Colter Walls)

“And where Mr. Obama’s basketball game is showy and often televised, his golf is furtive and off-the-record. He plays with junior aides and discreet longtime friends. There’s no press allowed onto the course with him, no cameras — and few witnesses. A foursome of loyal staffers often plays out ahead of him, clearing the way and trying to ensure no one spies.”

– Now that the ‘President plays sexist golf’ meme has been so ably snatched up by the NYT, the WSJ is apparently attempting to turn President Obama’s fondness for golf into some sort of John Le Carre thriller. Is it possible the president just likes privacy and golf is more relaxing? Eee gads! Life in the White House is never that simple! Some more tidbits from the article below (mostly because it’s hard to resist a Mark Knoller mention when one presents itself).

On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama played a mean, frequent and public game of hoops. He played outdoors and in, with pols, pros, troops in Kuwait and university kids half his age. “For people our age, it was like watching Clinton on ‘The Arsenio Hall Show,’ playing the saxophone,” says Alex Podlogar, a 34-year-old sportswriter at the Sanford Herald in Sanford, N.C.

But as president, Mr. Obama has neglected the court. He has played only seven known games of basketball since taking office, compared with 25 rounds of golf, a sport he picked up about a decade ago when he was an Illinois state senator. That’s more golf than former President George W. Bush played in two terms, according to CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller, who tracks presidential trivia. (In 2003, Mr. Bush quit golf, saying he did so out of respect for the troops serving in Iraq. Since leaving office, he has returned to the sport, an aide says.)

Nevertheless, MoDo is weighing in on Obama’s habit of surrounding himself with men on the golf course (and elsewhere). And you know what, I suspect this may be one topic that Dowd, who has been circulating in powerful political spheres for much of her professional life, could actually shed some light on. And low and behold she does (with nary a swipe at the Clintons, even) meaning this is one of those rare columns that makes you wish MoDo could be on her game more frequently.

But I don’t kid myself that the presidential playing fields are merely about play. After Tom’s golf outing, Politico ran the headline: “Friedman jumps to the front of the influence list.”

Like other bosses, presidents surround themselves with people who make them comfortable. Poppy Bush liked racy humor, but was too gentlemanly to use it with women. So male advisers bonded with him by telling dirty jokes.

Obama likes to play sports, watch sports and talk sports. (Even his favorite TV shows, “Mad Men” and “Entourage,” are set in male-dominated worlds.) So the Obama aides who can do that, like Robert Gibbs, have a deeper personal connection with the president than someone like Rahm Emanuel, the former ballet dancer who prefers yoga to golf.

Just as some men can’t ingratiate themselves through sports, some women can. Condi Rice drew close to W. — nudging away Dick Cheney — by working out with him and talking football.

Barack Obama’s fondness for golf is not a secret — anyone who follows a White House correspondent on Twitter knows that their weekends are often spent waiting for the president to finish his 18 holes. This past weekend, however, Obama’s favorite pastime got some extra, significantly placed, mentions. The first from CBS’s Mark Knoller who noted that Obama has racked as many golf games in his first nine months than George W. Bush did in almost three years:

Today – Obama ties Pres. Bush in the number of rounds of golf played in office: 24. Took Bush 2 yrs & 10 months.

Bush ended his presidential golf after round 24. He came to feel it was inappropriate for the Commander-in-Chief while US was at war.about 17 hours ago from web

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf,” Bush said to Politico’s Mike Allen.about 17 hours ago from web

Perhaps presidential golf is the new presidential “clearing brush.” Stay tuned for Glenn Beck’s analysis of why all this golf makes Obama a communist/socialist/elitist Mao follower. Which might be humorous, except the politics of Obama’s golf game does not stop there. Yesterday’s pool report, penned by Chicago Sun-Times‘ Lynn Sweet, noted that Saturday was the first time that Obama had invited a woman to join his foursome. The first time. From the report:

The golf game was notable in that the presidential foursome included, for the first time a female, Melody Barnes, the president’s chief domestic policy advisor. The foursome: Obama, Barnes, Obama pal Eric Whitaker, the physician who is an executive vice president at the University of Chicago Medical Center and Marvin Nicholson, the White House trip director.

The timing of Barnes’ appearance on the green (also noted in WaPo) was interesting as it coincided with this Sunday’s NYT A-1 story about how the Obama White House is a boys club.

The suspicion flared in recent weeks — and not for the first time — after President Obama was criticized by women’s advocates and liberal bloggers for hosting a high-level basketball game with no female players…Ben Finkenbinder, a junior press aide and scratch golfer, was recently invited into a foursome with Mr. Obama. (In records kept by Mark Knoller of CBS, the president has played 23 rounds of golf since taking office, none of which have included women, though Mr. Knoller allows that the press office does not always release the names of every player. A White House spokesman, Bill Burton, said Friday that Mr. Obama planned to play this weekend with Ms. Barnes.)

That is a whole lot of high profile, politicized golf mentions for one weekend! The last time this much attention was spent on Presidential leisure time was during the Obama’s Martha’s Vineyard vacation, which also happens to be the week many people feel the White House lost control of the narrative. So, yeah. Get ready, because there is only so much White House vs. Fox News a news cycle can take and ‘the President plays too much sexist golf’ seems set to nicely fill in the gaps in the week to come.