"Bush, unlike most Americans, doesn’t really get time off from the job."

Bush_Eats_Beef

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Wed Aug-17-05 08:31 PM
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"Bush, unlike most Americans, doesn’t really get time off from the job."

No Summer Doldrums
The White House promised that President Bush’s Texas vacation would be busy. But they might have wished for a little less activity around the ranch.

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey
Newsweek
Updated: 5:58 p.m. ET Aug. 17, 2005

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8988555/site/newsweek/

Aug. 17, 2005 - When President George W. Bush left Washington earlier this month for a five-week visit to his Texas ranch, the White House seemed more sensitive than ever to criticism that Bush has taken too much vacation during his presidency. Administration officials reminded reporters that Bush, unlike most Americans who take a leave from work, doesn’t really get time off from the job. Every morning, whether he is on vacation or not, Bush receives briefings on national security, signs documents and holds conferences with top aides. On most days, the president receives multiple updates from his staff on Iraq, terrorism and other issues of international significance. While prefacing that Bush would enjoy some “down time” on what is shaping up to be his longest sojourn away from the White House, Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters the president’s visit to his Crawford ranch would be a “working vacation.”

So far, Bush has maintained a relatively busy schedule. Two weeks ago, he hosted Colombian President Alvaro Uribe at the ranch to discuss Colombia’s efforts to combat guerilla groups. Last week, Bush took two quick day trips—to New Mexico, where he signed a new energy bill into law, and to Illinois, where he signed a controversial highway-funding bill, which critics decried as too expensive and bloated with congressional pork. Sandwiched in between those trips: meetings with his economic advisers last Tuesday and a sit-down with his foreign-policy team on Thursday. Both of those events were followed by short news conferences at the ranch, where administration officials hoped to capitalize on a slow news cycle and a captive national press corps to push the president’s agenda.

For the White House, maintaining a sense of momentum this August is perhaps more important than in recent years. Bush is now well into his second term and, like most of his Oval Office predecessors, is staring down a deadline on the degree of his political prowess in Washington. Until recently, Bush had not captured many high-profile legislative victories on the Hill. Social Security reform, his biggest second-term agenda goal, has stalled, and efforts to rewrite the tax code were pushed off until next year. Last month, as Congress approved a flurry of major bills in the last days before the August recess, the White House took a victory lap, citing progress on the energy bill and the Central American Free Trade Agreement as signs that Bush was not yet a lame duck. “The facts say otherwise,” McClellan said. “We are getting things done for the American people.”

Administration officials had hoped to maintain that momentum heading into September, when Congress takes up the Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts and Bush plans to renew his Social Security push. But that momentum—as well as the president’s plan to focus heavily on his domestic agenda—continues to be undermined by worries about the war in Iraq. It’s a story that continues to be front and center thanks to a recent spike in casualties, troubles in the drafting of the Iraqi Constitution and by the story of Cindy Sheehan, the military mom turned antiwar activist who has become the face of poll numbers that suggest a growing number of Americans want to see U.S. troops come home—sooner rather than later. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted the first weekend of August found that 54 percent of those surveyed believe the United States “made a mistake” in sending troops to Iraq. The same survey found that 56 percent of those polled want to see a reduction in the number of troops stationed in Iraq.