US President Barack Obama regrets golfing after Foley's death. (Efforts to carve out a semblance of a normal life through recreation)

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama now admits that his decision to play a vacation round of golf immediately after addressing the murder of US journalist James Foley by Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), was a mistake. "I should have anticipated the optics," Obama said in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

The president said that he had been forced to hold back tears when he spoke privately to the family of Foley, who was beheaded, but added that there was always the prospect of a "jarring" contrast between world events and his own efforts to carve out a semblance of a normal life through recreation.