Saturday, December 03, 2011

Blue Hawaii - Jammie Wearing Fools: "Exhausted from grueling fundraising trips, POTUS to vacation for 17 days."  In other news, Obama is insisting that Congress work through the holidays to extend the payroll tax cut.  It's called "leadership" and Obama will be ready to sign that bill from the beach when needed.

10 comments:

Vacation! Fundraisers! Teleprompter! Birth certificate! said...

Through their first 31 months in office, according to media stat maven Mark Knoller:

Obama-- 61 vacation days
GW Bush-- 180 vacation days
Clinton-- 28 vacation days
Reagan-- 112 vacation days
(Bush Sr. was listed as "less than his son but more than Obama")

Obama has attended more fundraisers than his predecessors-- 69 so far this year, compared with 41 for Bush in the first 11 months of 2003 and 23 for Clinton in the first 11 months of 1995. Thanks, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission!

However, about 10% of Obama's top fundraising "bundlers" have been rewarded with nominations for ambassadorships or senior posts, as opposed to 40% of Bush's and Clinton's.

Eric said...

I've always been a little annoyed at Dubya's lavish vacations, clearing brush from his ranch in beautiful Crawford, Texas.

How many of Obama's bundlers have been awarded with "green energy" loans or Chevy Volt contracts? Oh but no ambassadorships.

Anonymous said...

To be fair, Bush has started cutting back on his vacation time lately:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1354211/George-W-Bush-cancels-Switzerland-visit-fears-arrest-torture-charges.html

George W. Bush spent 487 days at Camp David. Barack Obama's been there for 70. Don't embarrass yourself just to keep the stupid and insincere "Obama's skipping work!" meme going.

Eric said...

I'm drawing the distinction between Bush's "vacation" in what was known as the Western White House and Obama's sun-filled days at Martha's Vineyard.

So stays at Camp David are the new benchmark? How about rounds of golf? Cases of homebrewed beer?

It's like the guy's living in an Adam Sandler movie.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1363563/Keeping-busy-Mr-President-Obama-heads-60th-game-golf-reaching-White-House-takes-brewing-beer.html

When you can't argue the data... said...

When Franklin Roosevelt stayed at the luxury Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu, it was called the "Western White House."

Richard Nixon's expansive mansion in San Clemente was called the "Western White House."

Apparently some media hype goes down easy with today's skeptical right, but only with a delicious side of cleared Texas brush. This would be a phony premise even if Obama's immediate predecessor HADN'T just obliterated all records for absenteeism.

"Obama's sun-filled days"? Crawford hits triple digits. Adam Sandler was more sincere when he was sobbing as Opera Man.

Eric said...

Yes, the spin can be dizzying. For example, I'm impressed by Obama's endless "outreach" program which coincidentally occur only in election swing states.

Does Mark Knoller rack up Air Force One frequent flier mileage?

Ethics: the hot new thing since 2009 said...

If you're going to keep switching topics, it might be more fun to be on the right side of one. President Obama has travelled less often on Air Force One than George W. Bush did: 148 missions with 416 sorties in his first two years, compared with Obama's 126 missions and 324 sorties in 2009-10.

Those figures are according to those classic leftwing apologists, the 89th Airlift Wing of the Air Force.

Bush logged 68,000 miles on Air Force One in the first 5 months of 2004, almost all of them to swing states or fundraiser locations. In 2006, almost two-thirds of his Air Force One trips to political appearances included one official event to avoid repayment of costs; sometimes these events were added on the day of the scheduled flight.

What is also true is that Obama has done the same thing. Maybe you can wipe away your one-sided tears of rage at the misuse of Air Force One with the September 11th photograph of Bush on board the airplane that was sold as a premium to 2002 RNC donors.

Eric said...

Note to self: remember how many miles Dubya logged in the first 5 months of his re-election year. If 2011 fundraising trips are a guide, 2012 should be a record-breaker for Obama.

Bonus! It looks like the FactCheck article from which you gathered your Air Force One data specifically disputes the statistics from Mark Knoller of CBS, which started this whole thread.

http://www.factcheck.org/2011/07/the-traveling-president/

Far be it from me to suggest you're twisting facts to serve your own whims. Oh, heavens, no.

You could probably use a vacation around now. said...

The heavens can't help you. Try reading the FactCheck article again, because you're 100% wrong. The article doesn't dispute Mark Knoller's statistics, as much as you might like it to. It expressly states that the unprovable and misleading claims in the chain email are NOT Knoller's at all:

FactCheck:
"Contrary to what the e-mail about Obama's use of Air Force One suggests, Mark Knoller of CBS News is not the author of this e-mail."


A partisan internet bonehead took some numbers from Knoller and elsewhere, ignored all context, and added some juvenile rhetoric. He hoped to make a reader falsely believe that Obama's vacation/flight totals are unusually high for a President. Oh heavens! Why would anyone do such a thing?

Knoller's number crunching determined that Obama flew on Air Force One 172 separate times in 2010, a number that includes the "A to B to C" legs of the trips; the Air Force counts Obama's total as 177. It's 172 or 177, depending on criteria: that's the sole numerical discrepancy mentioned in the article. The only "dispute" is that the Air Force feels citing overall trips is more apt than adding up the takeoffs and landings, as Knoller has done. FactCheck takes no position on which bookkeeping method is preferable.

Having a wonderful time comprehending the data. Wish you were here!

Eric @ work said...

My bad.