Click here for updated vacation numbers through July 2011.
I want my Presidents to have vacation days, be rested, and in top mental shape for the job of leading my government. While I think one can abuse the vacation privilege as President Bush clearly did, I think it was important to have kept his batteries primed. Therefore, I find the grousing about Obama and his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard rather childlike.
So let us compare President Obama and President Bush on the number of vacation days while in office.
This is Mr. Obama’s 9th vacation since taking office. As of today, he has spent all or part of 38 days on “vacation” away from the White House. He has also made 14 visits to Camp David spanning all or part of 32 days. It brings his total time away to all or part of 70 days.
It’s less than the “vacation” time taken during the same period by his immediate predecessor.
As of this point in his 1st term, Mr. Bush had made 14 visits to his Texas ranch spanning all or part of 102 days. He also made 40 visits to Camp David spanning all or part of 123 days. His “vacation” total at this point in his presidency was all or part of 225 days away.
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 
Just remember, during the Bush Administration we did not have this severe economic crisis.
Bush ran the country with administrative knowledge, sound team support, job experience and kept the us above water.
Obama has run the country into the ground with NO job experience, no leadership experience, no administrative experience, with nothing.
Bush’s results warranted vacation, Obama’s job to date warrants NO vacation time.
When are you going to stop reflecting on the Bush administration as the “be all” point of measurement? Sounds like you voted for this President, so when are you going to find the things you can justify on their own merit under this present administration?
No, during Bush’s unprecedented number of vacation days, we had a major terrorist attack on our soil, 2 foreign wars, and a huge natural disaster (Katrina).
I’m not sure how you can say Bush kept us above water since he gave us the largest deficit ever in the history of this country or how you can say Obama has run the country into the ground in his 1 1/2 years when there isn’t a single problem facing this country that wasn’t present when he took office.
Finally, you compare Bush and Obama and their relative success (at least by your view) and then complain that people need to start grading Obama’s presidency by its own merits instead of comparing it to Bush’s. You can’t have it both ways, so which is it?
re: deficits-
Give Obama some time. He’s on pace to blow all the records away:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2009/10/620000005/1
President Bush goes home and it’s considered a vacation. Thanks for bringing this to my attention Liberals. Now I can brag that I vacation most of the year!
It is NOT the number of vacation days a president takes or toke, it is the leadership shown to the country. As for the national deficit, whereby one president “created” it, the other AMPLIFIES it two fold.
Federal spending with the Obama stimulas pla was the way to not allow for the economy to have slipped even further into the ditch following the reckless tax cuts and needless invasion of Iraq from the Bush years. The war as we all know was never paid for…Bush never even thought about paying for it.
Bush was lucky enough that the proverbial bubble only popped at the end of his term. our country is in the tank. it’s not necessarily one president or the others fault even though they are put in charge of the country. If we look at the wealth spread in our nation we see that something like >80% of wealth is in the hands of 20% of the population and the .1% of the populations riches are growing faster than any other. These are the people who are running the country into the ground by cutting corners to stay rich or at least that is what I see.
Keep in mind B. Obama has been in office to take his vacation days for less than 3 years. George W. Bush was in office to take his vacation days for 8 years. Keep it real folks – make your own judgments, but LET’S KEEP IT REAL!
Truth,
Truth will surface now…..the numbers reflect the number of days on vacation at this same period of time….31 months….for all the names mentioned.
In contrast by Feb. 2009 President Bush had spent his 879th day at his ranch in Crawford, Texas!!
Yes, truth will be told on this blog.
bluh bluh bluh this is exactly whats wrong with this country. Everyone’s right and my sides correct. GET OVER IT. No one is gonna be completely happy. We all don’t agree, including everyone in Congress. No one works together but everyone wants to point the finger. Its sad. When did we all foresake ourselves?
People talking about Bush starting the deficit- the president does not control our spending, Congress does. Guess who was seated there during Bush’s term- Obama. He helped create it and now he has made it worse. By the way the number of vacation days is pretty off. Bush did spend more time away than most, but Obama did spend 26 days on vacation his first year alone(whether it be a full or partial day). Take a look yourself..
94 rounds of Golf, come on!! Who has time for that? So Obama plays a round of golf about every 12 to 13 days.. Wow.. Now with a $15.5 Trillion dollar debt, unemployment over 8%, over a hundred thousand troops still at war, US boarders are out of control and more Americans on Welfare then ever. So Bush is unpatriotic according to Obama. So what is Obama when he added $5 Trillion to the debt in 3 years.. Obama is about Big Government, now look at big gov’t with the GSA parties costing $800 thousand. GSA budget under Obama $3.4 billion, under Bush $680 million. He is the worst President in History, NO question.. Case Closed..