Barack Obama took to the pages of People to pen a paean to parenthood this past week. It’s not a bad essay, actually, which starts off by talking about the pain of having an absent father for much of his childhood.  Because of that background, Obama writes, he is especially sensitive to taking time away from his family:

And even though my sister and I were lucky enough to be raised by a wonderful mother and caring grandparents, I always felt his absence and wondered what it would have been like if he had been a greater presence in my life. I still do. It is perhaps for this reason that fatherhood is so important to me, and why I’ve tried so hard to be there for my own children.

That’s not to say I’ve always been a perfect dad. I haven’t. When Malia and Sasha were younger, work kept me away from home more than it should have. At times, the burden of raising our two daughters has fallen too heavily on Michelle. During the campaign, not a day went by that I didn’t wish I could spend more time with the family I love more than anything else in the world.

As Jammie Wearing Fool notes, though, what is Obama doing while publicly bemoaning the time his job takes from his family?

I know this will be surprising to everyone, but the president has gone golfing.

Having clearly had enough of the solitude of Camp David, where he and the family were making a rare weekend sojourn, the president choppered early this morning directly to Andrews and headed straight to the Air Force base golf course. Not clear whether Michelle in the girls are still at Camp David or back at the White House. …

Today makes 11 weekends in a row that Obama has gone golfing. It’s his 14th outing this year and the 72nd of his presidency.

There’s nothing wrong with getting a break once in a while.  But writing about the regrets that come from not spending time with your children in the middle of an 11-weekend run of golf dates — and 72 of them in 120 weeks — doesn’t exactly ring with authenticity.  And since Obama has already begun campaigning for 2012 with over 20 fundraisers in the past 10 weeks, shouldn’t this be the time for Obama to take his own advice?

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