What's So Wrong With Taking a Vacation?
So, the first thing I did after celebrating the two-year anniversary of this column is I took a week off. I'm allowed to do that. Everyone should be allowed to take some time off from time to time, regardless of their profession or activity. We need to get away from it all sometimes, go home for a while, see loved ones and relax a little. Is that too much to ask? I think not, and I'm sure most of you would agree with that assertion. Whatever your beliefs, whatever your station in life, everyone needs to take time off from time to time.
So why is it that a lot of op-ed columnists and letter-writers keep throwing tantrums every year about this time when President Bush goes to his Texas ranch to kick back for a couple weeks? It's okay for your congressional representatives to take a month off and do nothing while major issues, like prescription drug benefits and homeland security are still on the table, but it's not okay for the president to sit on the sidelines while the Congress is in recess?
George W. Bush has the hardest job in the world, and I'm not just parroting some line that Ari Fleischer or Karl Rove or Rush Limbaugh uses when referring to Bush. I mean the President of the United States is the hardest job in the world. Think about all the struggle that goes into just getting the gig: You first have to run for a national election where everyone over the age of 18 can vote (not that they register or actually do vote), and you have to get everyone's attention in order to have any real chance of winning. And you also have to have made something of your life, usually 50-60 years of something; law school, congressman, senator, business owner, governor, it doesn't matter, just so long as it is something, and something big and important. Then you have to raise a ton of money, and you have to know people and have people who believe in you and will go to the mat for you. Then there's campaigning, and TV commercials, and debates, and in the case of the most recent presidential election, there's recounts and litigation and arguing before the Supreme Court.
Then when you get the job, you are expected to make good on your campaign promises, and you need to fill your Cabinet with people who have as spotless a record as yours had to be to get in the White House. Then you need to work with Congress, where often times, at least one of the two houses is controlled by a party that wants to see you fail miserably. If the economy tanks, it's your fault. If something important to somebody doesn't get passed, it's your fault. Columnists and political cartoonists lionize you one day, the next day they think you're an idiot. Now take all that and add everything that has happened since 8:45am on September 11. I'll tell you one thing for sure; there's no way I could have handled all that, I'd be on my third nervous breakdown by now if I had to deal with all that.
So if you have to go through all that 24-7-365, don't you deserve a vacation? Even a "working vacation", as Bush's Crawford trips often are? According to many pundits, including Jules Witcover of the Baltimore Sun, you don't deserve a vacation. Witcover devoted part of a column to attacking Bush for taking a vacation rather than doing something about our current economic unease. This also happened last year; sure the circumstances were different, we were in an actual recession rather than a feared recession, 9-11 had not happened yet, but the attacks were the same. Quoting Witcover: "The president is getting ready to fly the White House coop for most of August, vacationing at his Texas ranch, and Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to be back home in Wyoming for the month. While it is certainly true that the superb White House communications system can keep them in touch with breaking developments anywhere, their summer travel plans don't radiate vibes of urgency about dealing with the nation's agenda."
Oh, and Congress being on a month-long hiatus so they can go around campaigning and attacking their election challengers does? In case Mr. Witcover has forgotten, the way it works in Washington is the president proposes, the Congress disposes. Well, if Congress isn't around to dispose, what's the point in proposing anything? Is President Bush just supposed to talk up what he's going to push Congress to do when they get back for a few weeks just so Americans can feel good about what he's doing? It's not going to make the economy any better, and it's already been proven that a president can say anything about fixing what's wrong with the economy and it won't cause a sudden jump on Wall Street. In fact, people were criticizing Bush at one point for his every other day's reassurances that corporate reforms would be passed, because when Bush talked, the stock market would drop. Then, Bush wouldn't talk the next day, the Dow would plunge again, and people would start saying Bush wasn't doing enough to reassure investors! Witcover is of the belief that talking up the economy is ineffective without Bush actually doing something about it. While I don't know his political affiliation, I would have to guess Democrat, so I should note that the Democrats are the same people who claimed that part of the reason for the recession right after Bush took office was that he "talked down the economy" in order to get ripe conditions for his tax cut. So, apparently you can't talk up an economy, but you can talk down an economy.
I could be wrong, and maybe Mr. Witcover could correct me on this, because as he brags about in his ads in the Sun, he's been covering politics since the Eisenhower administration, but other presidents have taken vacations. Clinton was always going to Martha's Vineyard or Skaneateles or on various golf outings, Bush 41 had Kennebunkport; heck, as long as we're talking about Eisenhower, people criticized him all the time for his preference of tee times over Cabinet meetings. This isn't exactly a new thing for a president to take time off, and he deserves it, and he still is meeting with corporate leaders and the president of Mexico, and he still will talk to the nation when and if it is required. A president sitting in the White House doing nothing because he can't do anything with Congress out of session is pointless. Let the guy have his time off, he has more than earned it.
So why is it that a lot of op-ed columnists and letter-writers keep throwing tantrums every year about this time when President Bush goes to his Texas ranch to kick back for a couple weeks? It's okay for your congressional representatives to take a month off and do nothing while major issues, like prescription drug benefits and homeland security are still on the table, but it's not okay for the president to sit on the sidelines while the Congress is in recess?
George W. Bush has the hardest job in the world, and I'm not just parroting some line that Ari Fleischer or Karl Rove or Rush Limbaugh uses when referring to Bush. I mean the President of the United States is the hardest job in the world. Think about all the struggle that goes into just getting the gig: You first have to run for a national election where everyone over the age of 18 can vote (not that they register or actually do vote), and you have to get everyone's attention in order to have any real chance of winning. And you also have to have made something of your life, usually 50-60 years of something; law school, congressman, senator, business owner, governor, it doesn't matter, just so long as it is something, and something big and important. Then you have to raise a ton of money, and you have to know people and have people who believe in you and will go to the mat for you. Then there's campaigning, and TV commercials, and debates, and in the case of the most recent presidential election, there's recounts and litigation and arguing before the Supreme Court.
Then when you get the job, you are expected to make good on your campaign promises, and you need to fill your Cabinet with people who have as spotless a record as yours had to be to get in the White House. Then you need to work with Congress, where often times, at least one of the two houses is controlled by a party that wants to see you fail miserably. If the economy tanks, it's your fault. If something important to somebody doesn't get passed, it's your fault. Columnists and political cartoonists lionize you one day, the next day they think you're an idiot. Now take all that and add everything that has happened since 8:45am on September 11. I'll tell you one thing for sure; there's no way I could have handled all that, I'd be on my third nervous breakdown by now if I had to deal with all that.
So if you have to go through all that 24-7-365, don't you deserve a vacation? Even a "working vacation", as Bush's Crawford trips often are? According to many pundits, including Jules Witcover of the Baltimore Sun, you don't deserve a vacation. Witcover devoted part of a column to attacking Bush for taking a vacation rather than doing something about our current economic unease. This also happened last year; sure the circumstances were different, we were in an actual recession rather than a feared recession, 9-11 had not happened yet, but the attacks were the same. Quoting Witcover: "The president is getting ready to fly the White House coop for most of August, vacationing at his Texas ranch, and Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to be back home in Wyoming for the month. While it is certainly true that the superb White House communications system can keep them in touch with breaking developments anywhere, their summer travel plans don't radiate vibes of urgency about dealing with the nation's agenda."
Oh, and Congress being on a month-long hiatus so they can go around campaigning and attacking their election challengers does? In case Mr. Witcover has forgotten, the way it works in Washington is the president proposes, the Congress disposes. Well, if Congress isn't around to dispose, what's the point in proposing anything? Is President Bush just supposed to talk up what he's going to push Congress to do when they get back for a few weeks just so Americans can feel good about what he's doing? It's not going to make the economy any better, and it's already been proven that a president can say anything about fixing what's wrong with the economy and it won't cause a sudden jump on Wall Street. In fact, people were criticizing Bush at one point for his every other day's reassurances that corporate reforms would be passed, because when Bush talked, the stock market would drop. Then, Bush wouldn't talk the next day, the Dow would plunge again, and people would start saying Bush wasn't doing enough to reassure investors! Witcover is of the belief that talking up the economy is ineffective without Bush actually doing something about it. While I don't know his political affiliation, I would have to guess Democrat, so I should note that the Democrats are the same people who claimed that part of the reason for the recession right after Bush took office was that he "talked down the economy" in order to get ripe conditions for his tax cut. So, apparently you can't talk up an economy, but you can talk down an economy.
I could be wrong, and maybe Mr. Witcover could correct me on this, because as he brags about in his ads in the Sun, he's been covering politics since the Eisenhower administration, but other presidents have taken vacations. Clinton was always going to Martha's Vineyard or Skaneateles or on various golf outings, Bush 41 had Kennebunkport; heck, as long as we're talking about Eisenhower, people criticized him all the time for his preference of tee times over Cabinet meetings. This isn't exactly a new thing for a president to take time off, and he deserves it, and he still is meeting with corporate leaders and the president of Mexico, and he still will talk to the nation when and if it is required. A president sitting in the White House doing nothing because he can't do anything with Congress out of session is pointless. Let the guy have his time off, he has more than earned it.
posted by Dave | 12:03 AM
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