Great moments in blowing off work to play golf

I guess this is what President Bush was trying to avoid when he put away his clubs because he thought it was inappropriate to be seen on the links while the country was at war.

In Turkey, the normally above-criticism military is getting slammed in the nation’s newspapers after General Aydogan Babaoglu, head of the Turkish airforce, played in a golf tournament after an attack by the Kurdistan rebels that killed 17 Turkish troops. The general later said he directed the military’s response from the golf course, which instantly made me feel better about filing blog posts at the turn.

The Guardian UK has all the details here.

"You are a Turkish air force commander and your battle planes are engaged in an air operation. Air operations can't be coordinated from a golf course," wrote [Hurriyet newspaper’s] editor-in-chief, Ertugrul Ozkok. "The cave your planes bombed isn't the 18th hole either."

In response, Babaoglu said his golf trip been cleared in advance by a commander and accused his critics of seeking to undermine the military. "This should not be the way to criticise someone," he said. "By the time I got the news about the attack, I coordinated every move of our soldiers' counter-operations with my fellows in Ankara. Were there any shortcomings in the role of the air forces in the incident? Were there any mistakes? No."

I thought the ultimate never-ever-get-caught-playing-golf moment was the birth of your child, but now I’m adding directing a military counterattack to the list. Oh yeah, and also while the investment bank you run is going under or when you're deciding whether to pick Kwame Brown with the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft. (Sorry, Mike.)