President Donald Trump is leaving Washington for a 17-day trip to his golf course in Bedminster, N.J., on what the White House is calling a "working vacation."
This seemingly paradoxical term raises a thorny question for promise-tracking purposes: Is a "working vacation" a "vacation"?
Aides to President George W. Bush described his trips to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, as "working vacations" and the phrase was applied to at least one Florida jaunt by President Barack Obama.
Even presidential retreats that are not specifically billed as working vacations seem destined to entail some work due to the demands of the office.
When Obama traveled to his native Hawaii in December 2013, aides said he hoped for "a period of uninterrupted rest and relaxation." In other words, a non-working vacation, or what Merriam Webster defines as "a period spent away from home or business in travel or recreation."
Yet ahead of Obama's non-working vacation, aides said he would continue to receive daily national security briefings as well as updates on the troubled Obamacare implementation, and would also carve out time to consider reforms to the NSA's surveillance program.
Presidential vacations are also highly vulnerable to being swallowed by the the unforeseen. Some wondered if Obama's vacations weren't "cursed" given a pattern of interruption by international strife, terrorism or political brinksmanship back in Washington.
So it's safe to say the line between a vacation and working vacation is blurry and that all presidential retreats entail some work. But another truism is that a president's critics can be counted on to exploit the inherently bad optics of a president at leisure.
"Whenever a president goes on vacation, the opposition always raises a fuss about it," Kenneth Walsh, author of the book From Mount Vernon to Crawford: A History of the Presidents and Their Retreats, told USA Today. "It's sort of an easy target."
Sure enough, then-non-politician Trump, who called Obama's work ethic into question and regularly criticized him for spending too much time on the golf course, bemoaned Obama's December 2013 trip as "a 17-day vacation."
Likewise, Trump is now getting his fair share of critical coverage -- especially in light of his berating Obama.
"This is what's commonly known as being super, super hypocritical," wrote CNN's Chris Cilizza. "Not an uncommon look for politicians, but still worth calling out."
In Trump's defense, his upcoming trip may be driven in part by necessity.
White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said the West Wing staff needs to vacate the premises so that workers can replace the building's aging heating and cooling system.
It remains to be seen how much leisure time Trump will get relative to time spent working on this upcoming working vacation. We'll continue to monitor this and other presidential trips before weighing in more definitively.
Trump's extended trip to his golf resort looks more like a vacation than not. For now we rate this promise Stalled.