It's not an easy job.
- Thread starter TUMe
- Start date
Haven't seen the most recent numbers, but here's the stats from 2014
On Aug. 8, 2014, Knoller tweeted that Obama had taken 19 vacations totaling 125 days so far while in office. Those numbers have risen a bit due to the Martha’s Vineyard vacation, but that’s still many fewer than George W. Bush’s 65 combined trips to his Texas ranch and his parents’ home in Kennebunkport, Maine, which totaled 407 days at the same point in his presidency.
Not included in this data are trips to the Camp David presidential retreat in western Maryland, which Knoller doesn’t count as "vacation." Knoller told Yahoo! News that, through Aug. 12, 2014, Obama had made 33 visits to Camp David for all or part of 84 days, while Bush had been there 108 times for all or part of 341 days.
On Aug. 8, 2014, Knoller tweeted that Obama had taken 19 vacations totaling 125 days so far while in office. Those numbers have risen a bit due to the Martha’s Vineyard vacation, but that’s still many fewer than George W. Bush’s 65 combined trips to his Texas ranch and his parents’ home in Kennebunkport, Maine, which totaled 407 days at the same point in his presidency.
Not included in this data are trips to the Camp David presidential retreat in western Maryland, which Knoller doesn’t count as "vacation." Knoller told Yahoo! News that, through Aug. 12, 2014, Obama had made 33 visits to Camp David for all or part of 84 days, while Bush had been there 108 times for all or part of 341 days.
What is our president going to do in Washington about a crisis in another country that has basically been ongoing for multiple months? That's why we have CIA & NSA department heads. If they need the go ahead, he's a phone call away. The Cuba trip was important to the administration's agenda of reopening relations with them.
The things that are happening in Brussels aren't really any of our business (at least in the immediate time period.) Do any European prime ministers cancel their oversees visits when we have mass shootings / bombings? Probably not.
I did read an article that made suggestions about what Europe needed to do to help their terrorism problem. NATO needs to form a counterterrorism entity that has jurisdiction throughout multiple countries. Right now, it would be like if each of our states were trying to run their own counter terrorism agency without any federal entity backing it up. If Texas and California weren't able to share information on terrorist suspects we would probably have a bigger problem in the US than we do.
Come on. This clearly isn't 9/11. 9/11 was the worst terrorist attack in modern history. This isn't even near the level of the OKC bombing. I'm not sure, but I doubt many leaders stopped their overseas trips for that.
I don't know where Bush was during the Madrid train bombings or the London transport bombing but I wouldn't have expected him to cancel his trip if it were truly important to our foreign policy in this hemisphere.
I've always thought that criticisms of the vacations were dumb, but just as I thought Bush was rightly criticized for his "now check out this drive" joke immediately after a serious statement about Iraq, I think doing the wave with Raul while Americans are still missing in Europe is pretty bad.
Neither Cuba nor Argentina were vacations . They were state visits, I don't know how vacations got mixed up with the subject. If he had been taking a vacation, that would be one thing, but he was there as a representative of the United States. I don't fault him for continuing the trip that was already planned. I think some are intentionally missing the point. There had been a tragedy and Americans were dead and missing.
He could have been a good guest but toned down the party atmosphere.
He could have been a good guest but toned down the party atmosphere.
In regards to immigration, both Reagan and Bush.
http://www.businessinsider.com/reagan-and-bush-made-immigration-executive-orders-2014-11
I would say that Ike taking executive action and federalizing the Arkansas National Guard during the integration in Little Rock was another skirting of the constitution.
Truman did it with the 'Do nothing congress" when he took executive action to seize steel mills due to labor strikes during the Korean War. That action was challenged in the Supreme Court and ruled unconsitutional.
The Cuba trip was planned months ago, I love that our president was the ultimate ambassador for this country, opening up relationships with a country that should have been done 20 years ago. Please don't fall into the Trump and Cruz fear mongering act folks, be better than that, be bigger than that.
