Hey, he’s taking a Christmas break.  You’d think the NRO would welcome help fighting against the war on Christmas.

He may not be President yet, but Reid and Pelosi could get just about anything they wanted passed for the auto industry if he would just get behind it and strongly encourage his fellow democrats to do the same. The country is still in love with him enough that his fellow Dems wouldn’t dare oppose him yet. He has as much potential to determine the shape of the bailout as anyone in Washington except Paulson.

Yesssss, Sasquatch.  And I’m sure that if he did so you and National Review would support his approach, rather than screaming like stuck pigs about his presumption about doing the work when he’s not the President yet.

We’re starting to see a Clinton pattern develop early on the Right:  Obama is always wrong.

Their inevitable reactions remind me of a joke that former Canadian PM Brian Mulroney used to tell about his often very bad press.  Goes like this:

The PM is at his official retreat at Harrington Lake, and brings the boys and girls from the press with him. 
“Watch this,” he says.  “Look at this trick that I taught my dog.”
And he throws a stick out into the lake.  The dog leaps off the shore and runs on the top of the water to where the stick is, retrieves it and returns to shore.
“WOW!” say the media johnnies.  “Do that AGAIN!”  So the PM does it again.  And they run off to file their stories.
Next morning, Mulroney opens up the papers that the staff have left for him at the breakfast table.  All the headlines read, “MULRONEY SENDS HIS DOG INTO ICY LAKE EVEN THOUGH HE CAN’T SWIM!”

And, Sasquatch, let’s not forget the harping on luxury in the NR blog.  Assholes like that have no problem with luxury as long as it’s being used to immerse Republicans, executives, tycoons and the like.  Whenever a Democrat has any (Gore’s house!  Edward’s house! Obama’s vacation! Kerry’s windsurfing holiday!!!!!!  Eleventy one!!!!) then all of a sudden it’s BAD!  The message—over and above “find a stick to hit a Democrat with”—is that luxury is only acceptable if the Right People get it.  Otherwise it’s hypocricy / laziness / limousine liberalism / whatever.

Seeker,

I’m not really sure what you’re talking about, but the type of leadership I mentioned above is completely within the scope of normal Senatorial leadership. He might not be President yet, but he is still a Senator and could simply draft a legislative proposal himself or throw his weight behind someone else’s.

Whether or not National Review likes it is irrelevant, the issues are (1) does he think something needs to be done (2) does he have a good idea as to what (3) does he have the courage to take a position on this issue? The fact that he has yet to show any leadership on this issue means that he thinks the answer to one of those three questions above is NO.

And he thinks Bush isn’t going to take off for Christmas?  He took Wednesday off this week!  And has taken more vacation days than any other president ever!

“He might not be President yet, but he is still a Senator…”

WRONG. Obama resigned from the Senate on November 16th. He has as much power to draft legislation any average Joe who needs to spend all of their time on preparing for the Presidency.

So, basically, Sasquatch, your position is this: he should act like he still has a job that he no longer has, or should act like he has the authority of a job that he doesn’t have yet.  Okaaaaaaaaaaaay.

I gotta point out that Brian Mulroney deserved every bit of bad press he ever got and more besides.

Hey Fashion

Let’s not encourage Bush to do any more than he absolutely has to.

Think how much better off we’d be if he’d taken LOTS MORE vacation days.

Every time the guy breathes he screws us up more.

Just want to say thank you Seeker for such a great Canadian politics reference.

One of these days we gonna have to do a threadjack where we start debating the relative merits of Royal Commissions, and nobody will have a clue what we’re talking about.

Think how much better off we’d be if he’d taken LOTS MORE vacation days.

Every time the guy breathes he screws us up more.

True.

Though it seems to me that many of the actions that we consider screwups either involve things Bush, and the conservative movment simply don’t care about, or consider to be positive.

I busted my ass to finish my dissertation text a week before I started my new job.  I then too the next week and screwed off, traveled, visited friends, slept in, and generally avoided any responsibility whatsoever.

I am so very very glad that I did.

I don’t begrudge the Obama family one moment of their retreat.  This is the last chance they will have for a long while to be together and unscripted in their lives.  In fact, it tells me that Obama really was the person for the job, because only a person with a clue what he or she is getting into would take this last bit of time for themselves and their family.

Ms. Kate:
  Congrats on finishing your dissertation.

Andrew re your royal commission joke.
I LUV HAVIN COFFEH UP MAH NOSE!

He may not be President yet, but Reid and Pelosi could get just about anything they wanted passed for the auto industry if he would just get behind it and strongly encourage his fellow democrats to do the same.

And Shrub would promptly turn around and veto anything he didn’t like.  Because Obama isn’t president yet, and any legislation passed now would have to be signed by the current president before becoming law. 

There is little point in rushing to pass something acceptable to the president who would have to sign it now, when he could get much better legislation to sign himself in a month.  Committing to a Shrub-acceptable policy now would only get in the way of real progress then. 

Checks and balances is what our government is all about, and right now, Shrub has a powerful check in his hand.  Pretending that Obama is president now doesn’t make him president, with the power to sign legislation he likes, and ignore the current idiot’s ideas. 

I would hope that, quietly and behind the scenes, Obama is organizing for legislation to be passed promptly after he is sworn in.  Good legislation, that reflects a Democratic/progressive control of both Houses of Congress and the White House.  But Obama can’t publicly call the members of the new Congress together to draft legislation at this point, or to vote on it before inaugeration.  It just doesn’t work that way.

Are we supposed to take your mere assertion about Bush as fact, Fashion? How about evidence for this claim? Something like this might do:
“While the president of the United States is never completely on vacation, most commanders-in-chief manage to enjoy a respite from the daily grind during their stay the White House. George W. Bush seems to have taken this to the extreme early in his tenure as president. A humorous, fake resume for Bush suggests that he set the record for most days on vacation by any president in U.S. history—a bit of an exaggeration, but still cause for some teasing.”
http://ask.yahoo.com/20031001.html

Thanks, seeker - although that was a couple of years ago ... which is exactly why I am so glad that I got to just run, play, breathe, surf, kayak, bike, run to NYC, etc. I haven’t had the opportunity to screw off like that since.

Seriously. Obama is 1. Not a Senator and 2. Not the President. I think he removed himself from any office whatsoever because it would look ridiculous for him to be crowing about transparency and oversight as a junior member of the Senate when he’s about to be inaugurated. Until they put the the augur all up in his Presidential-Seal-Bearing-Pen+2, he’s Constitutionally powerless, and as soon as he resigned, he became politically powerless, thank goodness. Harry and Nancy (and increasingly, to my dismay, Barney and Chris) are just whistling through their spine-canals in this time of extreme vulnerability. It’s further proof that having Bush in office leaves a giant Cheney-shaped-hole in the effectiveness of our government.

Here’s their eaddress, and my comments there:

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

re: “While the Big Three Go Bankrupt “

Hey, dipshits, perhaps it’s escaped your attention that BHO isn’t the president yet, while W. was during Katrina.

Asswipes.

++++++
so much for my elevation of the public discourse. Too early, no coffee.

Eric the Rejector gets the award for the best use of derisive profanity in a concise and totally complete comment.

Oh, fred. The article you cited was from 2003. As of March, Bush beat the record set by St. Reagan, and did take the most vacation of any sitting president.

CITE: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/11/politics/uwire/main3927378.shtml

Also, leaving aside the veto, Bush might very well sign the law and refuse to enforce it, triggering a constitutional as well as an economic crisis. You know, like he did with torture.

God, Jesse, what’s wrong with you?

If you don’t *act* like Obama’s President, how can you *blame* him for the state the country’s in? How can you call it the Obama Recession? Hell, next you’re going to say that the Democrats aren’t to blame for the mortgage meltdown! Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, man!

Oh, and in addition to NOT BEING PRESIDENT YET, ay complaints about Obama taking a much-deserved vacation have to overcome the caveat that they guy has modern telecommunications equipment and knows how to use it. He doesn’t have to have everything printed out for him and read by a briefer specially flown in for the occasion.

Obama’s home state is Illinois, not Hawaii as the article states. I do not understand this idea of where you happen to be born defining you for your whole life.

Also, Bush authorized torture and illegal spying, whipped up national fear and hatred, baited gays, tried to dismantle women’s rights, demonized science, lied his way into a pointless and deadly war, alienated allies, crowed about capitalism to attack social services but prop up banks giving out golden parachutes, ravaged the Executive Branch with incompetent cronies, ravaged the Supreme Court with dangerous ideologues, celebrated ignorance and provinicialism, branded those who disagreed as traitors, rejected serious discussion of public and foreign policy, and, well, I’m sure I am leaving out some horrible thing I can’t remember, since there were so many. The basic theme is that conservatives and he have spent the last 8 years shitting all over our country.

So conservatives, you can shut the hell up about Obama’s Christmas vacation.

If you don’t *act* like Obama’s President, how can you *blame* him for the state the country’s in? How can you call it the Obama Recession? Hell, next you’re going to say that the Democrats aren’t to blame for the mortgage meltdown! Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, man!

Well, Obama seems to be black (SO I’VE HEARD I WOULDN’T KNOW I’M COLORBLIND) and Democrats forcing banks to give loans to all those people-who-maybe-aren’t-responsible-homeowner-colored is the *only* <strike>recession</strike> reason (NO FREUDIAN SLIPS HERE SHUDDUP) for the meltdown. So B. Hussein clearly he has TIES to <strike>TERRORISTS</strike> BLACK HOMEOWNERS and is totally responsible for everything. So there. /Republican

And yes, that recession/reason thing is an actual typing error I made, but I thought I’d keep it ‘cause it’s awesome. :p

this.

this right here is why i was somewhat worried about ANY dem winning.

because NO MATTER WHAT, everything will end up being blammed on dems and Obama. despite the fact that REPS caused the problems, that bush and chaney got out and PUSHED those problems further (those that they didn’t directly cause themselves), that dems in general have been arguing against rep policies for years -

it will ALL BE OBAMA’S FAULT! HE caused the recession/depression! HE personally melted the financal sector! HE lied to the press and the people about Iraq! HE did nothing during Katrina/Sept11/mortgage crises!

so i am worried that, in 4 years, there will be a backlash because Obama and the dems didn’t fix everything INSTANTLY, and the meme will be huge that IT’S ALL OBAMA’S FAULT and we will get ANOTHER crappy fucking RepThug in the white house (Palin? *shudder*), the reps will take Congress back, they will re-stock the Supreme Court with wing-nut fucktards.

but i didn’t think it would start BEFORE he even took office! i mean, he’s not even officially won yet! the electoral college hasn’t made it real yet! but SOMEHOW IT’S ALL HIS FAULT!

*sob*

save us from the Right…

but how does this fit in with “the war on Christmas”? he’s taking a Christmas vacation?  i mean… shouldn’t they be ignoring Obama taking a Christmas vacation, lest people get the impression he’s, oh, i don’t know, CHRISTIAN?

the inconsistancies and illogic of the right make my brain dribble out my ears…

Obama’s home state is Illinois, not Hawaii as the article states. I do not understand this idea of where you happen to be born defining you for your whole life.

I guess I can see that if you don’t have family in that state anymore, but it seems pretty weird to insist that the state where he grew up, where his sister lives, where he still has friends that he visits, and where his grandmother lived until her death isn’t his “home state.”

I’ve lived in California longer than I lived in Illinois (25 years vs. 18 years), but I still consider Illinois my home state because my family (and my in-laws) still lives there.

I see your point, Mnemosyne.

But in my own case, I really want to reject the idea that an arbitrary birthplace, where older family still lives, and where one was when a teenager with little choice in the matter (the South, where I am not now nor ever will be again), says much about a person. It seems that a deliberately chosen destination, once values and ideas of community are decided upon, would say a whole lot more.

And so many places in the USA are the same anyway - Hawaii is a bit of a different case - but what really is the difference among, say, Evanston, Westchester County, Orange County, Scottsdale, and Northern Virginia, as examples, except maybe the weather, some terminology, and preferred outdoor/cultural activities? I do not understand why Americans are always wanting to know where others are from, in the sense of where one grew up, as if it really matters.

Ok, now I’m going to get eaten for saying that, but it’s just an observation from my experience in different areas of the USA.

I would like to point out that another reason to go to Hawaii is to memoralize his grandmother.  How many of you would put off the funeral of a beloved family member?

Give the guy time to breath.  He really does have feelings!