Permanent Vacation

Apr 22 2004
Counterbias.com
by Doug Griffin


If you've been paying attention to the hearings and subsequent findings of the 9/11 Commission, it is obvious that someone dropped the ball when it came to intelligence and subsequent preventative action prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  We know that a little over a month before the attacks, while vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, President Bush received the now infamous PDB.  Sometimes the obvious is so obvious, it obscures itself.

With all the talk about "who knew what" and "when did they know it" in regards to the events of 9/11, there has been a glaring question that has been largely ignored: 

Why was President Bush on vacation?

Far short of a year after his inauguration, President Bush II was on vacation at the "Western Whitehouse" in Crawford.  George W. Bush claims to be a "wartime" president. We've been at war since September 12, 2001.  The president has been on vacation for a considerable amount of time, both before and during our time of war.  One war - Afghanistan - was necessary.  Then there's Dubya's Wild Goose Chase war a.k.a. Operation: Iraqi Freedom.  Ironically, the president was winding up yet another vacation as I began formulating this piece.  While America's Finest were laying down their lives for his WGC for WMD, the "wartime" president was hunting and fishing (for game, not WMD this time) with campaign contributors rather than leading the country - as a "wartime" president should.  Doesn't that bother anybody?

Where is that moral indignation that the electorate used to rationalize electing Bush 43 in the first place?  Perhaps it's the stress of being a "wartime" president.  Maybe peacetime presidents vacation more than wartime presidents.  Don't they?  Surely that philandering Bill Clinton took more vacations.  There's no way that the current President Bush has taken more vacation days than President Clinton.  Right?

Here are the vacations of record by the current and previous 4 administrations: Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II.

•      President Jimmy Carter (D) Georgia:

            79 Days (over 1 term - 4 years)

•      President Ronald Reagan (R) California:

            335 days (over 2 terms - 8 years)

•      President George H. W. Bush (R) Texas:

            543 days (over 1 term - 4 years)

•      President William J. Clinton (D) Arkansas:

            152 days (over 2 terms - 8 years)

•      President George W. Bush (R) Texas:

           250 days (as of Aug. '03, less than one term!)

Okay, so Dubya hasn't vacationed half as much as his father who served only one term as president, but thus far has outpaced Ronald Reagan.  The striking contrast comes when comparing Bush II to the two Democratic Presidents on the list.  Combined, the total vacation days taken by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (231 days over twelve years) fall short of the current President Bush who has yet to finish a full four-year term, and he's already vacationed a whopping 250 days and counting.  Indeed, comparing the twelve years under Carter and Clinton (the Democrats) to the twelve years under Reagan and Bush I (the Republicans) is a rather telling statistic: The Democrats (those lazy liberals) seem to work a lot more for the country than the Republicans do.  Single-handedly, the Republicans have taken more vacation days each than the combined total of Presidents Carter and Clinton.  But neither Ronald Reagan nor George H. W. Bush was president when we were attacked on September 11, 2001.  Bush 42 was.  Unfortunately, he still is.

According to a recent article by Fred Kaplan, Bush spent about 40% of his first year as president away from the Whitehouse:

"Then again, it's easy to forget that before the terrorists struck,

Bush was widely regarded as an unusually aloof president.

Joe Conason has calculated that up until Sept. 11, 2001, Bush

had spent 54 days at the ranch, 38 days at Camp David, and four

days at the Bush compound in Kennebunkport—a total of 96 days, or

about 40 percent of his presidency, outside of Washington."

This president has a lifelong pattern of being AWOL and this time it may have cost 3,000 people their lives.  During the Vietnam War, Dubya's birthstation provided him the opportunity to protect the skies of Texas from the wily Viet Cong.  Mission Accomplished!  Not one slipped through.  Texans were able to sleep because we knew we were under the protective eye of the future president.  The problem is that there was no real threat then.  There was a real threat on August 6, 2001 when President Bush received the PDB entitled Bin Laden Determined to strike inside the U.S.  And just like the would-be pilot couldn't be bothered to fulfill his patriotic duty as an Air National Guardsman, the man who became the president couldn't be bothered to do his sworn duty as Commander-in-Chief. He didn't cut his vacation short (remember he hadn't even been in office a year yet) and spring into action like... like... dare I say... Captain America, and maybe try to prevent the impending disaster.  

What we're being sold is: "I wasn't on point."  No kidding.  You weren't on point, you were on vacation, Mr. President.  Is it too much to ask that when a known terrorist organization who has openly declared war on the United States, the president and his cabinet take it seriously?  When so much information indicates a major violent occurrence against the country you've sworn to protect, continuing a vacation isn't the most prudent course of action.  Just like when soldiers and marines are dying by the handful fighting a war of their president's choosing, it might be a good idea to cut the vacation short.  You wouldn't want people to think you're out of touch, would you?

Again, where is the moral indignation?  The extent of the excuses that conservatives make for this president is unbelievable.  I would wager all the oil in Iraq that if Bill Clinton had been president under the exact same circumstances, Republicans would have been calling for impeachment. As I recall, the reason for impeaching Clinton in the first place was because he lied under oath about a sexual indiscretion.  Hardly a matter of national security, and nobody died because of it.  I know the Democrats aren't in control of Congress but the level of impropriety is a little much to take.  There was so much moral outrage because Bill Clinton stained an intern's dress and lied about how the stain got there.  That was SO terrible.  Right?  President Bush and his administration were on vacation and let the most devastating terrorist attack occur on their watch.  During the deadliest month of the post-war occupation of Iraq, the president was on vacation.  But that's okay.  Right?

Let's also remember that Clinton was actually working during his screw-up.  40% of President Bush's first year in office was spent on vacation.  This April, Bush continued to vacation as many more of our men and women in uniform gave the ultimate sacrifice for his desert crusade.  250-plus days and counting of vacation taken on his first term.  Can this country handle another four years of the self-proclaimed "wartime" president?  Wartime presidents don't vacation in the middle of the war - especially the ones they start.  It's time America gave George W. Bush a permanent vacation.