New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | November 21, 2005

Tim Cavanaugh wonders how spending vast sums of tax dollars became a proxy for competence.

Comments

|11.21.05 @ 3:41PM|#

I often hear people who can't stand Bush lament that he takes too many vacations. I don't really understand this. If he's on vacation at least he's not fucking up the place. Personally, I wish he'd take more vacations.

|11.21.05 @ 3:41PM|#

"Tim Cavanaugh wonders how spending vast sums of tax dollars became a proxy for competence."

The greatest "tragedy of the commons" of them all - unlimited democracy, where noone owns anything, and everybody has a claim at stealing everything.

|11.21.05 @ 3:55PM|#

cmon mad scientist, you can do better than that.

Neglect, or insufficient attention IS incompetence. See, for example, the due dilligence President Bush showed when seeing the report titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike America" in August of 2001.

|11.21.05 @ 4:08PM|#

I think the point is though, Coach, that if many of our politicians, including presidents, going back long before 2001 and Bush the First had been 'on vacation' a lot more, we'd be in a helluva better spot than we're in now. And that includes not being fucked with by a bunch of fanatical jihadists.

|11.21.05 @ 4:16PM|#

Coach, given typical governmental "solutions" to problems, be they bin Laden or Hurrican Katrina or campaign finance reform or you name it, I'd rather have to deal with the problem than the-problem-and-everything-the-government-is-doing-to-make-the-problem-worse. Let them all take vacations for 52 weeks a year. I'll even petition for a raise for the lot of them so they'll be more likely to take the time off.

|11.21.05 @ 4:58PM|#

Um, can anyone tell me if there was anything of worth in that article. Or even a thesis? Summary: Bush likes vacations, government like pork, Bush throws more pork at a problem, one guy stands up, gets crushed, same old game. AND?

R C Dean|11.21.05 @ 5:03PM|#

I suspect that the workload on the average Presidential "vacation" would snap the spines of most posters at H & R. He probably goes from working 14 hours a day to working a mere 8.

Wintermute|11.21.05 @ 7:40PM|#

Smiling @ "wrinkly old parasites."

I remember a magazine cover, I think it was The New Republic's, that illustrated the lead article, "Greedy Geezers."

I've talked about this problem my whole life and got nowhere. You young whippersnappers are gonna have to pick up the gauntlet, because the burden on you may be unbearable.

|11.21.05 @ 8:43PM|#

I suspect that the workload on the average Presidential "vacation" would snap the spines of most posters at H & R. He probably goes from working 14 hours a day to working a mere 8.

What makes you suspect he works more than 8 hours a day regularly? Hell, I'm not convinced he's even really working then. My impression is that he has a lot of meetings where people tell him things and he generally approves or disapproves according to what he's been advised to approve or disapprove of. Not that he doesn't have his own ideas, but there's no evidence that they're not very simplistic.

I mean I know he travels a lot and reads a lot of words out loud (usually in the right order) that other people have composed for him. But he does brag about not reading and he's already set a record for vacations away from the White House.

R C Dean|11.22.05 @ 9:57AM|#

What makes you suspect he works more than 8 hours a day regularly?

Well, something goes on in the White House that ages Presidents prematurely. I doubt its all the napping and websurfing.

Seriously, though, there are bottomless, endless demands on a President's time. I've seen how other government and business executives in far less demanding positions spend their days, and none of them work less than 12 hours a day, except on weekends when they cut it back to maybe half that.

I have no reason to believe any President is any different. Do you? If so, why?

|11.22.05 @ 11:34AM|#

My impression is that he has a lot of meetings where people tell him things and he generally approves or disapproves

Ditto. I bet nappin' Ronald "Bedtime for Bonzo" Reagan worked harder, at nearly twice Shrub's age. W just takes up space.

|11.22.05 @ 2:12PM|#

Well, something goes on in the White House that ages Presidents prematurely. I doubt its all the napping and websurfing.

People age a lot more after 50, period. I don't think Bush is websurfing or napping, but I've no reason to suspect that he works, as most folks define the word. I'm not aware of anything he's "worked" on (besides speeches and debates, etc). Talked about at meetings, maybe. But really sat down and racked his brain over? I'm doubtful.

I have no reason to believe any President is any different. Do you? If so, why?

I believe Bush is different because he has the least impressive background of any President I can think of and has never uttered an unrehearsed, unscripted word that was insightful or thoughtful. His "work" before he got into politics was laughable, and usually laughed at by the people he worked with.

This has nothing to do with my disagreements with him (I loathe many Presidents who were impressive individuals), and I'm open to the possibility that I'm wrong. I've just not seen any evidence to suggest that I am.