From thismodernworld.com

July 01, 2004
Our Phantom President

Sorry for disappearing for a couple of days. It's gonna happen.

But then again (and this is old news, but worth remembering)...

If Bush can continue to spend all or part of over 40 percent of the days of his entire presidency at one of his three retreats (read down in the link), I hope to be forgiven.

This statistic, incidentally, overrates Bush's vacation time, since many of these are partial days, and he does occasionally do some official work in Crawford or at Camp David. However, it doesn't include the time Bush spends campaigning and fundraising, largely at taxpayer expense (think Air Force One costs, for example), which has nothing to do with actually running the country. As of late March, Bush had taken well over 400 campaign trips (again, read down in the link); by now, the number is surely approaching 500. So the amount of time Bush has spent not being our president is easily upwards of 40 percent.

Incidentally, Michael Moore makes the point in Fahrenheit 911 (about which more will soon follow) that Bush spent 42 percent of his time on vacation prior to 9/11.

Maybe all that time Bush now spends out glad-handing and repeating tired falsehoods for money, he'd really rather be working.

If not, then Bush's behavior pre-9/11 hasn't changed. Not one bit.

You'd think the deaths of almost 3000 Americans and two wars might have gotten the guy to show up for work a little more often...