Fact Check: Does Obama spend more time on vacation than his predecessors?
Times-Union readers want to know:
President Barack Obama is off on vacation - again. It seems as if he takes a lot of vacation. An email I received confirms that, saying that Obama has been on vacation more than his predecessors. Is that true?
Obama, scheduled to end his vacation on Martha's Vineyard, Mass., Sunday, seems to generate a lot of criticism for his family vacations. Viral emails complain about how much it costs for him to go on vacation - transportation, Secret Service protection, moving the White House to a vacation spot - at a time when the economy still hasn't fully recovered.
Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, earlier this year introduced a resolution calling on Obama to skip vacations until the White House restored the public tours that were cut because of sequestration. He said the president's trip to Martha's Vineyard appears "tone deaf."
Supporters contend that a president has to have all the decision-making capabilities while on vacation and, yes, that is pricey to establish.
But that is the case for any president, not just Obama.
And they all draw their share of criticism. Franklin Roosevelt, for example, was blistered for vacationing on the presidential yacht and taking a seven-day fishing trip during World War II without letting the media know, according to an article on the vacation controversy in USA Today.
But are presidents really on "vacation?" Yes, they play golf and partake in other R&R. But they're never totally away from the demands of the presidency. Daily briefings are part of most vacation days. George W. Bush had to deal with Hurricane Katrina during one of his "vacations," while his father, George H.W. Bush, was at his Kennebunkport, Maine, vacation spot when he planned the U.S. response to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the USA Today article noted. And Clinton ordered airstrikes against al-Qaida terrorists after U.S. embassies were bombed while he was on "vacation" in Martha's Vineyard. Obama himself had to cut short his 2012 Christmas vacation to Hawaii to get back to Washington to avert drastic tax increases before the holiday. And just the other day, he had to address the situation in Egypt.
So while days might be counted as "vacation," they might not be exactly fun times.
The Rev. Al Sharpton defended Obama on the Aug. 9. 2013, edition of "Politics Nation," on MSNBC. He showed a clip of Fox News' Sean Hannity saying that Obama "is living a pretty extravagant lifestyle, isn't he? Martha's Vineyard, big expensive vacations, Hawaii, while 50 million Americans are on food stamps."
Sharpton retorted, according to PolitiFact.com, that Obama "has taken 92 days of vacation since he was sworn in. How many did President [George W.] Bush take by the same point in his presidency? Three hundred and sixty seven. Yes, more than a full year of vacation."
PolitiFact.com, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-finding project of the Tampa Bay Times, checked that out. An MSNBC spokeswoman told PolitiFact.com that the source of Sharpton's quote was an article in USA Today in which the information was attributed to CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller, who has covered every president since Gerald Ford and who keeps track of presidential travel.
Right before Obama left for Martha's Vineyard, Knoller tweeted that "since taking office, Pres Obama has taken 14 vacation trips spanning all or part of 92 days." Knoller also tweeted that "at the same point in office, Pres. GWBush had made 50 visits to this Texas Ranch totaling all or part of 323 days."
PolitiFact.com also reported that, according to Knoller's data, 26 more of Bush's vacation days were spent in Kennebunkport, while 18 others were at various other locations - a total of 367 days. (Trips to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland are not included in either president's figures.)
HawaiiNewsNow has reported that, as of the first of the year, Obama was projected to spend 168 days on holiday. Over eight years, Bill Clinton took 174 vacation days at Martha's Vineyard and Jackson Hole, Wyo., and Ronald Reagan vacationed 349 days at his California ranch.
PolitiFact.com looked at the two presidents' vacation patterns and what the costs might be.
The costs are tough to figure out as no White House has ever been open about expenses, PolitiFact.com notes. But because Bush and Reagan owned their ranches, often the site of working vacations, the government may have been able to save some per-trip cost money for them going repeatedly to one place compared to Obama's various vacation locations.
Carole Fader: (904) 359-4635