Presidential vacations, part I

I say part I, but I may not mean it. I set out to research presidential vacations in order to show who has taken them, where, and how long, and I came across this great op-ed by Richard Miniter in August 2001. I'm not sure I'm going to try and top it with a part II yet. Some highlights:

Why don't reporters like the president's vacation? For one thing, they don't like Texas. And Mr. Bush is on to them. "I know a lot of you wish you were on the East Coast, lounging on the beach, sucking in salt air. But when you are from Texas -- and love Texas -- this is where you come home. This is my home. ... I don't mind the heat," Mr. Bush told the Los Angeles Times.
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Part of the press's constant carping about presidential vacations is a function of lazy partisanship. Journalists recycle the same complaints about Republican presidents: Their vacations are too long, their elections are somehow illegitimate. (Remember the respectful attention the press gave the Gary Sick conspiracy theory about Mr. Reagan's purported "October surprise" and Donna Brazile's fevered accounts of crypto-racism in the Willie Horton ads in 1988?) And of course that old favorite that the GOP president is dumb and can't remember the names of world leaders or his own cabinet.

Yet presidents have been taking vacations since George Washington, who left Philadelphia for Mount Vernon twice a year for weeks on end during each of his eight years in office. Thomas Jefferson appreciated the importance of long vacations too. Writing to Lafayette in 1789, Jefferson stressed the importance of leaders wandering the countryside, preferably incognito, "to see first-hand how people live. You must ferret the people out of their hovels as I have done, look into their kettles, eat their bread, loll on their beds under the pretense of resting yourself, but in fact to find out if they are soft." Indeed Mr. Bush plans a series of short trips to visit ordinary Americans across the heartland.
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The public seems to like presidential vacations, which usually bring on higher approval ratings. And when school's out in Washington, the stock market seems to do better too. Eighty-nine percent of stock market gains from 1897 to 1993 occurred during a congressional recess, according to a 1997 study by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. (Who doesn't like it when the politicians vacate the asylum? ~ed)

As Miniter notes, it could be worse. Bush could follow Teddy Roosevelt's example and start shooting reporters' dogs. Now that would be justified outrage.