Bush on vacation, out of touch during tough times
As The Financial Times noted, Mr. Bush is acting positively French in his love of le loafing, with 339 days at his ranch since he took office - nearly a year out of his five. Most Americans, on the other hand, take fewer vacations than anyone else in the developed world (even the Japanese), averaging only 13 to 16 days off a year.
- Maureen Dowd
I do not begrudge a sitting President his need for R&R. Given the the 24/7/365 nature of the job, time away from the grind of the White House can only be a good thing. Having said that, however, if you or I were out of the office 20% of the time, we’d be looking for new jobs, and deservedly so. Yes, the nature of being President is unlike any job you or I will ever have. That still doesn’t justify the most powerful man in the free world being on hiatus 20% of the time.
The other part of the equation is the symbolism. While a President has as much right (hell, probably more) to a vacation as anyone else, what sort of message is sent by a President who can vacation so extensively and cavalierly while American troops are being blown apart by roadside bombs on a daily basis?
I’m not one to think that I have any right at all to tell the most powerful person in the world what he can or should do with his time. I do have to wonder, though, when that President seems more concerned with getting on with his life than with acknowledging the meatgrinder that his Iraq policy has become.
The most rested president in American history headed West yesterday to get away from his Western getaway - and the mushrooming Crawford Woodstock - and spend a couple of days at the Tamarack Resort in the rural Idaho mountains.
“I’m kind of hangin’ loose, as they say,” he told reporters….
W. didn’t go alone, of course. Just as he took his beloved feather pillow on the road during his 2000 campaign, now he takes his beloved bike. An Air Force One steward tenderly unloaded W.’s $3,000 Trek Fuel mountain bike when they landed in Boise.
Gas is guzzling toward $3 a gallon. U.S. troop casualties in Iraq are at their highest levels since the invasion. As Donald Rumsfeld conceded yesterday, “The lethality, however, is up.” Afghanistan’s getting more dangerous, too. The defense secretary says he’s raising troop levels in both places for coming elections.
So our overextended troops must prepare for more forced rotations, while the president hangs loose.
It seems hopefully, unforgivably sad that while so many young American lives are being wasted in Iraq, our laissez-faire President barrels down a mountain bike trail on a $3000 Trek two-wheeled limousine.
What kind of message does it send when Our Glorious Leader is so frequently relaxing and recreating while his war in Iraq is claiming more young American lives with each passing day? It’s hard to believe that 51% of the electorate could be so stupid and undemanding as to elect a liar and a murderer who seems to neither know nor care about the pain and suffering the war he lied his way into has caused to so many.
If a President can be impeached for getting his pole greased by an intern, shouldn’t being responsible for almost 1900 dead Americans exact at least a similar price? And why do so many Americans view George W. Bush as some sort of hero?
It would seem that there there is something to Goebbel’s Big Lie theory after all, and the Bush Administration is taking full advantage of the American public’s short attention span.
Every day the president is out of sight, another Republican landslide creeps out of the collective mind. People are starting to wake up to the fact that, maybe it wasn't the best idea to have our WHOLE political system hijacked by a single party--no matter how much they line up to your beliefs. The Republican's had their chance and the only thing we have to show for it is rising gas prices, pork barrel spending, and military cuts when we need the military the most. It's like a Keystone cops routine in D.C. right now and, frankly, I think the public is fed up with it. I have spoken to many staunch Republicans and I don't think they will be voting the same this next time around. They finally realize we need the Democrats to maintain some legislative sanity -- you know the good ol' checks and balances. Without them we are at the whims of an oligarchy -- and not a very smart one at that.
In the summer of 2001 a character on the Tonight Show dressed as Bush said "I am working for the American people 24/7: 24 hours a week and 7 months a year."