It is not a good idea to place bets on the doings of the president, even on those days when he is reliably ensconced in Washington.
But it has become especially hazardous during a presidential vacation. Local television crews and expectant residents of Martha's Vineyard Island have devoted considerable time to predicting where the president might surface next and to staking out prime viewing spots along roads and parking lots.Would he go to the agricultural fair in West Tisbury? Did he plan to hit the golf links? Might he drop by the big fireworks show in Oak Bluffs? Clinton watchers could scarcely believe that the peripatetic president would stay put.
But that is what he has done, mostly. Aside from a brief run into the woods and away from the television cameras Friday, the president had stayed out of public sight until Saturday. His wife, Hillary, and daughter, Chelsea, have been even more invisible.
To the astonishment of many, it appears that the president has been intent on actually having a family vacation. The Clintons turned over the plush main house on the estate of Robert L. McNamara to members of their support staff and they moved into the more modest guest house.
"I didn't do anything yesterday," the president said when he arrived at the Farm Neck Golf Club in Oak Bluffs on Saturday. "It was great. Read a book. Slept. It's been a long time."
Clinton was joined for golf by Associate Attorney General Webster L. Hubbell and Vernon Jordan, the Washington lawyer. Jordan respectfully began with two awful shots, one off a tree, before sending one down the center of the fairway.
What is the president up to next?
"I think they plan to keep this very loose and unscheduled," said Dee Dee Myers, the press secretary. "I think they'll wake up every morning and decide, based on the weather and how they feel, what they want to do.
"Just like a normal vacation."