Bush’s vacations

Here’s a question I found about George Bush’s penchant for vacations (Ask Yahoo!):

“How many vacation days has George W. Bush taken to date as president? …”

A fair question for a present sitting on top of the worst economy since the Great Depression, fighting wars in two countries (Afghanistan and Iraq, for those with shorter memories) and performing radical surgery on many of America’s most important laws and institutions (forming the largest government agency to oversee the ‘Homeland’ being one of the them).

“According to an August 2003 article in the Washington Post, President Bush has spent all or part of 166 days during his presidency at his Crawford, Texas, ranch or en route. Add the time spent at or en route to the presidential retreat of Camp David and at the Bush family estate in Kennebunkport, Maine, and Bush has taken 250 days off as of August 2003. That’s 27% of his presidency spent on vacation. Although to be fair, much of this time is classified as a “working vacation.””

The elder Bush also cranked out vacation days, racking up 543 days in total during his four years. (some of those must have been “working vacation”, no?) To no one’s great surprise,

“Jimmy Carter took the least days off — only 79 days … That’s less than three weeks a year, which is closer to the average American’s paid time off of 13 days per year.”

Even David Letterman got into the act one night, with the Top Ten Things Overheard During George W. Bush’s Vacation. Here’s a couple of the better ones:

• This vacation is flying by — only 33 days left
• Better start making stuff up for the State of the Union Address
• I’m itching to declare another war
• Whoever’s in charge really screwed up the economy

Pretty bold stuff for a mainstream network. They probably heard he doesn’t stay up that late (or watch TV for that matter). Or read newspapers. Not kidding. He’s apparently quite proud of the fact that he receives all of his news from Rumsfeld, Rice and Cheney.