Selective Indignation

While I suppose our President can be impugned on a variety of fronts (he is human, after all) there is a lot of hooey floating around in the right wing press and blogosphere regarding his vacation schedule. I have done a little bit of research and forgive me if I tell you that the ire seems a bit misplaced. As Presidents go, historically, he is actually pretty middle of the road. He, of course, had to cut his recent trip to his Hawaiian Birthplace short after four days to deal with that pesky fiscal cliff.

The real champion is his predecessor, George W. Bush. Bush takes the cake, 1,020 days on vacation, more than any U.S. President since Herbert Hoover and possibly more than any other modern President in history. Bush's trips to the ranch in Crawford were said to cost John Q. Taxpayer upwards of a cool 20 million.

To put Bush's record in perspective, FDR was President for 12 years and only rang up 958 vacation days. In 2005, Bush took the longest single vacation, 5 weeks, of any President in 36 years. Funny, you never heard many jabs at Bush from the leftwing, mainstream press regarding his work schedule. Maybe people figured that if he was busy shooting jackrabbits he was less apt to screw things up governing. Bush spent a full 32% of his tenure in office on vacation.

According to POTUS Tracker, from January 2009 to October 31, 2012, President Obama spent all or part of 72 days on vacation, a paltry number in comparison to many of his predecessors. Through May 18,  he also visited Camp David 22 times, spending  54 days there.The record for vacation misers in the last seven presidential terms were actually Carter and Clinton. But lets excoriate the democrats by all means. Fits so much better into the narrative.

Obama is said to have played approximately 104 rounds of golf during his tenure, as of August 4 of this year. For comparison, Speaker of the House John Boehner estimates that he plays 100 rounds per year.
Ike played 800 rounds in his two terms in office.

Historically these modern day presidents can't compare to their elders. John Adams took eight months off in 1798 to be with his ailing Abigail. Washington would just leave and take three month trips to the south without telling anybody where he was going. Jefferson and Madison also liked to take three month vacations.

But the right wing press just likes to bitch, bitch, bitch.