Lazy President, or our Laziest President?

At some point during President Obama’s first term, one of my family used the right wing talking point that “President Obama has taken more vacation days than any President in history.” This became a conservative talking point because (1) it takes a legitimate criticism of President Bush and deflects it onto Obama, and (2) it plays up the whole “Obama is lazy,” meme which is code for Obama is black and therefore lazy. Of course, it wasn’t true then and still isn’t true.

But Obama has taken far less time away from the White House than his predecessor, George W. Bush, who spent weeks at a time at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Obama has taken 87 days off, compared with 399 days for Bush at a similar period in his presidency, according to CBS News’s Mark Knoller, who keeps detailed records of presidential travel. Link

President George W. Bush, at this point during his second term, had taken off more than a YEAR, four times as many days as President Obama. Of course, the President is never really on vacation and is always on call, but still. 399 days?