Politico reports that the President is taking a vacation after his vacation. Several readers, presumably progressives and liberals who voted for Barack Obama, responded negatively -- and with the kind of crude and vulgar name-calling one expects from the right-wing blogosphere -- to my Wednesday column knocking the First Family's Martha's Vineyard holiday while unemployment heads toward 10 percent and Mr. Obama leaves Congress to grapple with the health care reform. And he's only been on the job seven months.

Symbolism being everything when it comes to the presidency, this kind of behavior doesn't strike me as that of a "change agent" determined to turn the house upside down. It's not so much Bush-like as it is Clintonian; Bill and Hill summered in the Vineyard and the Hamptons. And I guess that was cool, or we didn't notice or care as much, because the economy was strong (unemployment was but 4 percent when the Clintons left office.) Things are very different right now, and the president should reflect that difference. Given his clear empathy for working people, you'd expect Mr. Obama to be down-to-earth careful in these choices; it would have been refreshing, anyway.

I suppose Mr. Obama might have intended to send a reassuring, confidence-building don't-worry-take-vacation message to the American people. But when you go to the Vineyard, and pay $25,000 for a rental place, after just seven months on the job, with millions who can no longer afford vacation . .  it doesn't work, and it's disappointing.