President Bush And Vacations

The Hill reports that Democratic leaders in the House and Senate have rejected "compromise" legislation worked out by Democratic Senators Levin and Stabenow of Michigan and Republican Voinovich of Ohio and Bond of Missouri. The three domestic automakers would have received a $25 billion loan, to have been taken out of money already approved by Congress to assist the companies in retooling plants to enable them to meet more stringent fuel economy standards.

That proposal sounds like the Administration's approach, and White House spokeswoman Dana Perrino slammed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for allegedly

looking to pick up his ball and go home for the next two weeks — two months — for vacation. And if that is the case, then one can only deduct [sic] that the Democrats don't believe that the auto industry really needs help, and really needs help now.... If the Congress doesn't act this week, and the — one of the companies is in imminent danger of insolvency, we would suspect that they would want to come back and finish the work that they didn't get done this week....I can't imagine a scenario where they wouldn't come back, unless the answer is that they just don't care. And if that's the case, then the American people ought to know that and hear it from them.

So the White House is accusing congressional Democrats going on vacation because "they just don't care" about the "imminent danger of insolvency" faced by the auto companies.

If I represented George W. Bush, I would be careful about charging another branch of the federal government with ignoring a crisis and selfishly going on vacation. For it was on:

-July 5, 2001 that counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke told law enforcement officials he had gathered inside the White House's Situation Room "Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon" (and reportedly directed all counter-intelligence officials to cancel vacations);

-August 6, 2001 that President Bush received the famous Presidential Daily Brief entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside U.S.;"

-August 9, 2001, that the President gave a prime-time television speech to the nation about "a complex and difficult issue, an issue that is one of the most profound of our time"- stem cell research;

-August 12, 2001 that the President left the capital for a vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, not to return till August 31, 2001

-September 11, 2001....

A Relaxed President

Huffington Post reports (8/14/08) that, after a day of work, President Bush on 8/15/08 would be leaving for his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

That's par for the course for the 43rd President. We all remember the Presidential Daily Briefing of August 6, 2001 with its title "bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US." President Bush's response? As the BBC reported that day, "Washington is turning out the lights for August and Mr Bush is leading the way. For the next month the world's superpower will be run from a farm seven miles down Prairie Chapel Road in Texas."

But it's not only at times of crisis that Bush goes on vacation. As of 8/13/08, the President had been at Crawford or Camp David on 913 days. That's over 130 weeks of vacation. In a little over seven-and-a-half years. Approximately 17 weeks- four months- of vacation a year.

But as these photos from thinkprogress.org indicate, Mr. Bush does know how to have a good time and on the second of the four, appears possibly to have had some liquid refreshment to aid him.

The Associated Press on August 11 described the scene:
At the Olympic baseball stadium, Bush was in the mood to talk sports, not policy. He had just spent time mingling with the Chinese and U.S. baseball teams, and now they were lacing line drives across one of Beijing's pristine Olympic venues....Before the big U.S.-China basketball game, Bush met the players, huddled up, and led them in a one-two-three-USA cheer. He laughed in describing the moment, how high he had to look up to see their faces.

If only Mr. Bush enjoyed leading as much as he does cheerleading, perhaps he would do a little of it sometime.

Good News!

As you will recall, Attorney General Michael Mukasey on March 26, 2008, while speaking at a public affairs forum at the Commonweal Club in San Francisco, claimed the United States government "shouldn't need a warrant when somebody picks up the phone in Iraq and calls somebody in the United States because that's the call that we may really want to know about. And before 9/11, that's the call that we didn't know about."

That led Glenn Greenwald of salon.com to note:

Even under the "old" FISA, no warrants are required where the targeted person is outside the U.S. (Afghanistan) and calls into the U.S. Thus, if it's really true, as Mukasey now claims, that the Bush administration knew about a Terrorist in an Afghan safe house making Terrorist-planning calls into the U.S., then they could have -- and should have -- eavesdropped on that call and didn't need a warrant to do so.

So we knew either that a) the Bush Administration declined to check out a call, thereby ignoring a prime opportunity to thwart the terrorist attack(s) of 9/11/01; or b) Mukasey was lying, in order to assert the regime's claim that the old FISA, which it believes inadequate to spy on Americans, needs to be overhauled.

Now comes reassuring news. Greenwald writes on 4/7/08 on his blog that he has received from Lee Hamilton, vice-chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, the following statement (which he believes is accurate):

I am unfamiliar with the telephone call that Attorney General Mukasey cited in his appearance in San Francisco on March 27. The 9/11 Commission did not receive any information pertaining to its occurrence.

So our President of Swagger (and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice) studiously avoided holding a Cabinet-level meeting, urged by security adviser Richard Clarke on January 24, 2001 to review the Al Qaeda threat and ignored the President's Daily Brief of August 6, 2001 "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike In U.S." However, it now appears he did not ignore this particular call preceeding that disastrous day- because it probably never took place. Mukasey was merely lying- which, with this crowd, is routine and constitutes, at least in this case, great news.