And how much time off does Congress have every year? This is such a silly story. What is there that the President does in Washingtong that can't be done from Crawford? The establishment media is just bitter that they have to spend summer in Texas (which is admittedly not a particularly nice time to be there...), a fact that Bush surely gets a huge kick out of.

Bush's balanced and humane approach to work and liesure offends the ranks of those with disordered souls and psychotic minds. Bush learned the hard life lesson about the consequences of imbalance and indulgence. His critics have not grown in this wisdom. No wonder he defeats and confounds them so often.

I'm curious what posters here would say to the fact that our Marines in Iraq aren't getting 5 weeks off, perhaps Bush could've used better discretion here.

Scof: Can you give a single example of something that Pres. Bush can't do during his time "off" in Crawford that he could do in Washington?

Schedule play at the tennis courts.

Who in their right mind would trade their 2-3 weeks vacation for 5 weeks with all the 24/7/365 responsibilities of the Presidency?

Scof demonstrates that the Left simply can't get past the hair shirt. His presumption seems to be that the troops in Iraq would be better off if Bush were somehow enjoying life less. I, personally, have always been more concerned with someone's quality of work than with the hours on the job.

ali: very good :) that is an amazing depth of knowledge

scof: maybe you could write to the nea and complain that their members getting 3+ months off a year is bad for troop morale.

you would think that the people who complain about what a bad job bush is doing would want him to take as much time off as possible.

There's a certain mindset I've encountered in large corporations that says that if you aren't engaged in phrenetic activity, you aren't doing anything. It doesn't matter if that activity is useful or destructive, it's the appearance that matters. And that activity has to be widely seen and public as possible, so everyone knows it.

So the person who puts in their 8 hours and goes home, who takes the vacation coming to them, who isn't enthusatically making sure every meeting lasts the full hour, who has a life outside the company, is obviously not a team player and should be viewed with suspicion.

Scof:

Do you get as much time off as the Chief Executive of your company?

When Marines have what little R&R they get, they're entirely off duty. Obviously, this is not the case for the POTUS, regardless of how many days he does or doesn't spend in D.C. or Crawford or wherever. Both the Marine and the president knew that when they took the oath.

classic leftist approach to any situation, make everyone equally miserable.

While I have no way to know for sure, I suspect this President would rather be in Fallujah than in D.C. (much of the time).

I ain't a lefty as anyone who bothers to click on a hyperlink will find out. In the past I've learned quite a bit from OJ's writings on Prof. Kraynak and toleration and my political philosophy is squarely in the camp of the Thomist tradition, especially as advocated by Maritain and Voegelin.

What Bush can do in the Whitehouse that he can't do in Crawford is at least demonstrate that he's willing to work as hard as the men and women he's sending over to Iraq, and you show that by sticking with your team and your staff in the most powerful and presitigious office in the world.

I am concerned with the quality of his work and am quite concerned that the quality can and should be much better considering what we all know is at stake. George Will's recent comments on ABC this past Sunday further demonstrate the difficulty of the situation:

"Their point was that an extremely small number in Northern Ireland, 200 to 400 gunmen in an insurgency ... did require for maintenance of order tens of thousands of British forces. Now, when are we going to reduce the Iraqi insurgency to 200 to 400? Not soon."

cjm, the NEA isn't responsible for the execution of the war in Iraq. Try a credible analogy please.

oj, does the CEO of my company have the ability to start a World War? My point is not that I don't like Bush or the War, and I fully realize he can and does work at Crawford, but since it is a working vacation I suspect he doesn't do as much work as he does when he's in the White House and further working from the White House is a very powerful symbol, at least from a citizen's point of view. Our men over there could probably care less, but over here I think it matters. I think it matters quite a bit for morale and support on the home front.

scof: Read Tommy Franks' autobiography. Huge amounts of the planning for the Iraq War were carried out while Bush was in Crawford. Modern communication technology makes his physical location irrelevant.

Scof: Each Marine (and Soldier, Sailor, Airman, etc) from E-1 to O-10 gets 30 paid days leave a year.
Almost five weeks and unlike the President they won't be working during this paid leave.

Unlike the President that 30 days is all they get, this 5 weeks isn't Bush's only vacation this year and undoubtedly will not be his last if precedent holds.

I am coming from the point of view not that vacation is bad, rather that it would seem dealing with the Iraq insurgency and setting up a liberal civil society requires much more diverse planning and work than the initial War did, further this planning must be sustained at a high level on a quite frequent (daily?) basis. No doubt there are staffers and generals, competent also no doubt, who do alot of this work. But the buck stops with the President, part of his symbol of power is the White House and when things in the Sunni Triangle and along the borders haven't markedly improved I feel he should be at his elected office showing, symbolically, the same committment that the men under fire are. The symbolism here is very important and that would seem to me to be a basic political lesson. Giving more personal attention to this issue at the White House can only help the situation.

Scof:

It doesn't. We have an all volunteer army so that none of us will be affected at all. We don't care or want to know what goes on over there.

scof, how do you think clinton did with respect to supporting the military ? how would you characterize the way the miltary feels about clinton compared to how they feel about bush ?

How can you say none of us will be affected when we keep saying it is the spread of freedom that will keep us safe? When we keep pointing to examples of subways and skyscrapers blowing up as impetus to fight?

Clinton did a piss poor job and should be flogged publicly for Les Aspin alone. Doing a better job than him shouldn't be much for a Texan or a Republican, but Bush has a major war of massive significance. Exlempary leadership is quite plainly needed in wartime and the current situation warrants it as well. Taking a 5-week vacation, amidst his other vacations, is not part of displaying that kind of example.

Why is it a vacation? He'll be in Crawford, but he's still president. Just as he was President during the G-8.

Scof's objection boils down to appearance. He needs to be in an oval room to be President, otherwise he's lazy!

Scof:

We're already safe. We're spreading liberty for fun.

RC that's exactly what I've said! I wish I too could do without subtlety in my understanding of what others are saying...it is not appearance, it is the quite real example he is setting.

oj, is it that we don't care what's going on or we're doing it for fun? or we don't care because we're doing it for fun? well that sounds like a vacation to me...

Scof:

It certainly isn't hard work.