In an article about Presidential vacations, Ezra Klein makes this observation about the President:

Obama has limited patience for the idea that he should act like he’s doing his job rather than just do his job. A Democratic political consultant once told me that the problem with President Obama is that he doesn’t care to "get caught trying." That is to say, he doesn’t put on a show of trying to get things done when he doesn’t think the show will help get the thing done.

I know this gets him into all kinds of trouble (and behaving the same way has probably gotten me into all kinds of trouble as well), but I really wish more people were like this.