As NewsBusters has been reporting, Obama-loving media have been working overtime excusing the President for taking a vacation at Martha's Vineyard as average Americans struggle in a down economy.
Perhaps the most disgusting example yet came on this weekend's "The Chris Matthews Show" when the host actually connected the attacks on 9/11 to former President George W. Bush's vacation in August the month before (video follows with transcript and commentary):
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Before we break, it's a busy August. Turmoil in the markets, a president under heat for taking even ten days off with so many people out of work and the approaching tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It’s fascinating to see how different things were just ten years ago in August, 2001. While Osama bin Laden's henchmen were in the final stages of planning the 9/11 attacks, America slept. We were consumed by sensational news. The big story then: the disappearance of Congressional intern Chandra Levy. As the investigation of that began, local police and the media placed the spotlight on U.S. Congressman Gary Condit of California after it was confirmed he'd had an affair with Levy. The focus was totally unfair, but egged on by Condit's refusal to answer questions even until he finally talked to ABC News in late August.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you kill Chandra Levy?
FORMER CONGRESSMAN GARY CONDIT: I did not.
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MATTHEWS: What a question. Anyway, Condit’s political career was halted of course, and it wasn’t until this year that the convicted killer went to jail. Well August of ’01 was also the so-called summer of the shark.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's happened again and again. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, six swimmers and surfers off the coast of Florida were bitten by sharks over the weekend.
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MATTHEWS: Meantime, George W. Bush faced the biggest decision of his presidency up to that point: whether federal funds could be used for research on stem cells from human embryos. Bush decided those funds could only be used for research on existing stem cells not new ones.
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MATTHEWS: Well President Bush gave that speech from his Crawford ranch where he spent the entire month of August on vacation. Jon Stewart had this quip.
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JON STEWART, “THE DAILY SHOW”: My president went on vacation. All I got was this lousy sense of impending doom.
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MATTHEWS: Impending doom. While clearly a joke, it was very prescient. That was just five weeks before 9/11.
How disgusting.
Of course, what Matthews and other Obama-loving so-called journalists conveniently ignore is that Bush's sojourns to Crawford were considered working vacations.
This should have been obvious even to a shill like Matthews who noted during this segment that Bush's stem cell address came from Crawford.
As USA Today reported at the time:
White House officials point out that the president is never off the clock. They refer to the 30 days at his Texas ranch — now it's called the Western White House — as a working vacation. He'll receive daily national security updates and handle the duties of the Oval Office from his 1,583-acre spread near Crawford. [...]
When Bush retreats to his ranch, aides say, the White House just changes location. "He'll be returning to Texas and operating out of Crawford," says Karen Hughes, counselor to the president, referring more to the small town where reporters will gather than the exact site of Bush's command center. He'll be 7 miles down narrow, winding Prairie Chapel Road.
Hughes rattles off a list of things that will take up the president's time, from daily national security briefings to whatever national and international matters may come up.
And addressing the nation when necessary.
Does that seem like ten days of golf, swimming, boating, and fine dining on Martha's Vineyard to you?
