Obama finds refuge among close friends on vacation

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VINEYARD HAVEN, Mass. (AP) — They golf with him, they vacation

with him, their kids and his kids hang out. To them, he’s Barack,

not Mr. President. He can be teased and tease back.

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They form the trusted circle of tight-lipped friends who’ve

sustained Barack Obama through good times and bad since his days in

Chicago, from Hawaii to Washington to Martha’s Vineyard and back

again.

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For the most powerful man on the planet who nonetheless may have

one of the loneliest jobs, a close band of buddies – Eric Whitaker,

Martin Nesbitt and Valerie Jarrett form the core – has become a

second family, to a degree replacing the one he lost or never had

with the absence of his father and death of his mother in

1995.

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Apart from wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha, they’re the

people he’s closest with. And to the president, in his private life

a creature of habit, there’s a comfort in turning to trusted

friends with whom confidence runs deep and there is no question

about where loyalties lie.

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“I think that for a president of the United States who’s always on,

it’s a relief to be around people who’ve known you for a very long

time so that you can just be comfortable, No. 1 being yourself, and

No. 2 knowing that you can trust them completely,” Jarrett said in

an interview.

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“There’s a level of trust that has withstood the test of time. He

doesn’t have to worry about his friends leaking the details of his

vacation to the press,” she said.

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“He enjoys being around people who are completely comfortable

teasing him and treating him like a friend and not the president of

the United States.”

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The three friendships date back to Obama’s years in Chicago and

he’s maintained the ties remarkably close, even though he hasn’t

returned home to Chicago as much as he once said he had hoped

to.

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This summer, Jarrett, whom Obama brought to the White House as a

senior adviser, and Whitaker, an executive at the University of

Chicago Medical Center, vacationed with Obama on the Vineyard, the

exclusive island off the coast of Massachusetts where Obama has

been coming for more than 15 years – though not as long as Jarrett,

who’s been visiting since she was a young girl. On Friday, Obama

cut his planned 10-day vacation on the island a day short to come

back to Washington ahead of Hurricane Irene.

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For Obama the annual vacation has assumed a sameness, providing an

oasis of stability and normalcy that’s missing in other aspects of

his life. He golfs at the same island courses every year – and

there’s Whitaker, sitting next to him as he drives the cart. He and

Michelle and the girls hit the same bike trail and shop at the same

book store. They buy fried shrimp every year at Nancy’s seafood

restaurant, and sun themselves at the same beach – and Jarrett is

there, too, as the president relaxes and watches his girls swim in

the ocean.

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Nesbitt, who started and heads an airport parking company, doesn’t

come to the Vineyard although the friends hope to get him here

sometime. But on Obama’s other annual getaway, in his home state of

Hawaii, they’re all together again.

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Nesbitt and Whitaker also turn up frequently in Washington,

sometimes at unexpected times. The day after Obama struck a deal

with Republicans in April to avert a government shutdown, he paid a

quick, unannounced trip to the Lincoln Memorial on the National

Mall to show that the nation’s parks and monuments were open for

business. Whitaker was at his side, and the two bounded cheerfully

together up the imposing stone steps.

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The core group met and cemented their relationship through various

Chicago connections, including ties at the University of Chicago,

where Nesbitt and Michelle Obama’s brother attended business school

together. Jarrett first met the Obamas in 1991, when she hired

Michelle, then engaged to Barack Obama, to work in Chicago Mayor

Richard Daley’s administration.

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The White House declined to make Nesbitt or Whitaker available for

comment, and neither returned a message left at their

offices.

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Obama has other friends too – like Comcast chief executive Brian

Roberts, whose Martha’s Vineyard mansion he visited this week; and

UBS executive Robert Wolf, who rounded out one of his Martha’s

Vineyard golf foursomes – but none quite so close. And wherever

Obama goes in the world one of the three may be found at his side.

They provide Obama a listening ear if he wants one on policy

issues, but if he doesn’t want to talk shop, then they just let him

relax.

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When they’re hanging out, they watch movies, read, eat, play board

games – the things people do on vacation, aides say. Last summer,

to Jarrett’s chagrin, the White House publicized the fact that

Obama had beaten her at Scrabble.

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Harvard law Prof. Charles Ogletree, a friend, one-time teacher and

fellow Vineyard vacationer who hosted a reception for Obama on the

island last Saturday, said the president showed up with “no suit,

no tie, and a wide smile and a sense of relief” about being in

friendly territory.

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“As you walk into a room and you see him, you see how relaxed, how

unguarded, how open and funny, and yet how serious when it comes to

playing Scrabble,” Ogletree said. “There’s no privilege to being

the president or first lady, it’s all about friends, having fun,

enjoying family and engaging in serious trash talk with the

winner.”

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