Almost from its inception, the presidency of the United States has been a heavy weight on its occupants. Thomas Jefferson famously called the presidency a “splendid misery.” John Quincy Adams described his four years in the White House as “the four most miserable years of my life.” Herbert Hoover wrote “The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson,” a sympathetic account of Wilson’s troubled presidency, then suffered through his own presidential ordeal. Some presidents, including Hoover and Jimmy Carter, aged noticeably during a single term in the White House.
Obama, like F.D.R. and Reagan, is smart not to let the job dictate his daily routine.
Going against this grain, however, there have been presidents who thrived on the burdens of the office no matter what the condition of the nation under their command. Franklin D. Roosevelt is the champ. In a little-remembered book, “F.D.R., My Boss,” Mr. Roosevelt’s secretary Grace Tully affectionately described how he cheerfully added to his stamp collection, dabbled in architecture, played cards and “made a ritual of the cocktail hour” where serious talk was avoided during the depths of the Great Depression and World War II. Happiness was part of F.D.R.’s makeup. “From the bottom of his heart he wants
to be as happy as he is,” wrote his adviser Raymond Moley....
...It’s too early to know how much time President Obama will be able to spend surfing or swimming in faraway Hawaii, but it already seems evident that he has a high comfort level in the White House. For one thing, he follows his own timetable, as Reagan did. Before he was elected, Reagan grumbled when his staff awakened him too early. Stuart Spencer, an adviser, told him to get used to it because when he was president “that fellow from the National Security Council” would be there to brief him at 7:30 a.m. every day. “Well, he’s going to have a helluva long wait,” Mr. Reagan said.
President Obama, we are told, usually arrives in the Oval Office a little before 9 a.m., some two hours later than his predecessor, George W. Bush. This enables him to read the newspapers before coming to work (as F.D.R. and Reagan also did) and to spend time with daughters Malia and Sasha before they go to school. “I have never seen him happier,” Mr. Obama’s longtime adviser, David Axelrod, told The Times.
http://100days.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/get-out-of-the-white-house/
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