I’ve about had it with people bitching about how much “vacation time” President Bush has taken.
Several times today I heard audio and watched video clips of the pitiful little grieving war-casualty mother Cindy Sheehan asking how the President couldn’t be bothered with taking one hour out of his FIVE WEEK vacation to meet with her.
What I suspect she really means by “meet with her” is “let her deliver a good tongue lashing.”
If Bush indulges her, will she come out saying that he treated the event “like a party” this time?
Who Knows…
Well, I’ve got a news flash for everyone…
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IS NEVER, EVER, ACTUALLY ON VACATION!!
You got that?
At least not on vacation in the manner that you and I go on vacation. He and Laura are not sitting beside the ocean in a beach chair in the sand blowing notes on partially empty Corona beer bottles or running around a water park in Orlando and eating burgers at HardRock Café.
What has happened is that the president has moved most of his critical Whitehouse staff from Washington DC to his personal ranch in Crawford Texas.
President Bush apparently likes it better in Texas than in Washington. I can’t say that I blame him.
Besides, the Congress is on their own August recess and won’t resume the fall session in DC until after the Labor Day holidays. There is nobody left in Washington to play with or fight with—so why stay?
Think about this with me for a minute.
In Washington DC, if the president wants to walk outside with his dog(s), there is probably a TV camera looking up his butt and the dog’s butt the entire time.
And how far “outside” of the Whitehouse can the president actually go?
One hundred yards?
Two hundred yards?
Can he chop wood in Washington DC?
Can he drive a pickup truck or an ATV across the neatly manicured lawns on Pennsylvania Avenue?
No?
Now look at what he can do by temporarily shifting the operation of the US government from Washington DC to Crawford, Texas. You did know that President Bush has owned 1600 acres north of Crawford, Texas since 1999?
SIXTEEN HUNDRED ACRES.
My grandpa Rushing had 350 acres in south Alabama and I can tell you from experience that you couldn’t walk all over that property in two days.
Bush, accompanied by a few hand picked reporters and Secret Service Agents, can jump in a four wheel drive truck and head out for a day of “mud slinging.” He can fish in his stocked Bass lake. He can shoot skeet or trap or whatever game animals are in season, or just walk around and look at his cows.
And he can also walk out of HIS house and tell the damn reporters to get out of his face, and he can go out and pee behind a tree in the woods or scream and yell and take Ted Kennedy’s name in vain and no one would notice or care.
Can't do that in DC, can we?
But if the world blows up or Cheney has a heart attack or something else comes up, night or day, Monday through Sunday, he either has to handle the problem right then, right there, or jump on Air Force One and head back to DC.
Some vacation…
Finally, President Bush isn’t the first president to go somewhere other than the Camp David Retreat in Maryland when he wanted to kick up his heels and get away from the pomp and circumstance of the DC bullshit.
By the way, what is the difference between a “retreat” and a “vacation”? Does the ownership of the property make the difference?
Richard M. Nixon went to “The Western Whitehouse” in San Clemente, California.
I say that the voters and the media let President Bush lay his head down in a familiar room on a familiar pillow once in a while, and understand the concept of ever actually being on “vacation” as President of the United States is a Myth,
Thus the “Myth-ing” vacation...
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