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....