Barack Obama’s decision to waste no time in racing off for his annual Christmas getaway in Hawaii last week looked to be a prescient move yesterday as the rest of America struggled to their holiday destinations through a mixture of floods, tornadoes and ice-storms.
While Mr Obama clocked up the 150th round of golf of his presidency on the first day of his Hawaiian holiday, the US was battered by a strange mixture of storms that left people freezing in the north, basking in Spring-like temperatures in the east and mopping up floods down south.
Mr Obama avoided all the inconvenience, however, boarding Air Force One immediately after giving his final press conference of the year on Friday afternoon at which he confessed that he needed “a couple days of sleep and sun” to recharge after a year that was widely dubbed his "annus horribilis".
For the fifth year running, the president, accompanied by his wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha, is staying at a luxury rental property in the Kailua, a tranquil residential area on the windward coast of Oahu, the third largest of the Hawaiian islands. » | Peter Foster, Washington | Sunday, December 22, 2013
