Number of days, so far, President Bush has spent on his ranch in Crawford, TX during his time in office: 319 (about 20 percent)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01703.html


Discuss.

For comparrison ... that would be about 10 weeks a year.

(52 X .2)

The president is never ever on vacation. If he feels more comfortable at home than he feels at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue so be it. You don't need to be in the oval office to conduct business.

I'm not a huge fan of Bush for a multitude of reasons but this "vacation" thing is a joke.

Well said.

But B come on. I'm not a fan of Bush, but it isn't like he ceases working while he is there. I bet Crawford has a better missle defense system then New York and LA. My biggest complaint is, what type of man spends his time in Crawford Texas when he can go anywhere in the world for free? There are some beautiful places in Texas, Crawford isn't really one of them, and Destin is only a couple of hours by plain away.


But truly, it isn't really vacation time. And remember, while Bush is away, Cheney has the nucleur suitcase in hand

You just convinced me that this is a national crisis.

He may be "on-call" but that doesn't mean he's accomplishing anything. Besides, the administration is more than free to call it "Working from his ranch in Texas," but they don't ... do they? They call it vacation. I ain't the one saying he doesn't work. He is.

I'm sure he does some "work" down there but i doubt he puts in the kind of time that would be demanded of a president while in Washington. Frankly if my company were to let me work from home, optimistically i would maybe be 50% as efficient as i am now (RM breaks included ).

I actually just started working from home this week. So far I'd say, I do about twice as much as I would if I was in the office. The biggest thing I find is there are little interruptions, other than posting here.

The only problem I have with Bush's "vacation" time is that we are supposedly in the middle of a war. He's essentially saying, you guy's keep fighting, I'm going on vacation.

and how does Bush's vaca time compare to other recent presidents?

He's already spent more time than Reagan did in 8 years. 20% of his presidency from Crawford?

Carter = 79 days (1 term)
Reagan = 335 days (2 terms)
Bush Sr. = 543 days (1 term)
Clinton = 152 days (2 terms)

http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20031001.html

It looks to me like the entire Bush family doesn't like to do much work

trust me, reagan may not have taken physical vacations, but he was on vacation none the less

what is it the president actually, physically does that he has to show up for?

Regardless of the answer to this question, do you think that spending 20% of a presidency on vacation is ok?

we might be better off if he spent 95% of his presidency on vacation

but to answer your question a bit more directly - i don't really have any idea what the president of the united states actually does, other than give the speeches his speechwriters write for him and do a weekly radio address and such that requires him to be on the clock.
I'm pretty sure, however, it's not data entry or janitorial services, both of which would require the employee to be present for a set number of days to be effective at his/her job.

You make a reasonable point, I suppose.
Although...perhaps Bush could "tough it out" in DC as long as the Marines have to "tough it out" in 130 degree Iraq.