White House details Obama family weekend trip to Gulf

President Obama — and first lady Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha — will spend the weekend in Panama City, Fla., during their first trip together as a family to the Gulf Coast since the oil spill disaster, the White House announced Thursday.
 
They are expected to arrive late morning Saturday and will be staying until early afternoon on Sunday.
 
While there, Obama on Saturday will make a statement about the Gulf recovery effort after he and Michelle Obama will join area small-business owners and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus for a roundtable discussion on the matter. Obama in June tapped Mabus — a former Mississippi governor — to lead the effort in putting together a recovery plan.
 
The president and first lady collectively have made several trips to the area since the April 20 explosion of the BP-run Deepwater Horizon oil rig.
 
The Obamas raised some eyebrows by electing to travel to Maine for an earlier summer vacation one weekend in July instead of going to the Gulf at a time when businesses were hurting for tourism dollars due to the Gulf of Mexico spill. The Republican National Committee even put up a website chronicling what Obama was doing other than working on the Gulf oil spill. Others, like former Clinton adviser Paul Begala and former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, defended Obama and called out critics who were politicizing where the family vacationed.