How many vacation days has Barack Obama taken in his first year?

Answer 1

at least 28

Being the president is not an easy job. Any President deserves a vacation. Just as President George Bush did when he went to Crawford, Texas or Ronald Reagan to California or Bill Clinton to Martha's Vineyard. President Bush on these "vacations" found time to visit with nearly twenty heads of state in Crawford, and in 2002 he wired his ranch so secure video conferencing with intelligence officials could take place. In other words, Crawford, TX was indeed the Western White House. Hawaii and Martha's Vineyard has so far not given President Obama that same ability to project leadership.

Visitors to the Bush Crawford, TX ranch have included:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin, November 2001
• British Prime Minister Tony Blair, April 2002
• Saudi King Abdullah, April 2002, April 2005
• Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, August 2002
• Chinese President Jiāng Zémín, October 2002
• Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, February 2003
• Australian Prime Minister John Howard, May 2003
• Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichirō, May 2003
• Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, July 2003
• Mexican President Vicente Fox, March 2004, March 2005
• Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, April 2004
• Spanish King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía, November 2004
• Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, March 2005
• Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, April 2005
• Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, August 2005
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel, November 2007[12]
• Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, February 2008[13]

MSLM CBS reporter Knoller reports Bush took a total of 879 holidays. Knoller does not specify, in detail, the times and spans that equate to 879 holidays and does not explain whether he counts national holidays? Interesting that the Huffington left wing blog, which quotes Knoller, doesn't find it important to document the time Obama has been on vacation but rather rationalizes the idea that a President needs excessive vacation time including playing basketball with his "dream" team.

According to the questionable unbiased information source, Politico, "By Knoller's count, Saturday's golfing outing with Biden was Obama's 39th round of golf since he took office (and his 7th since the start of the oil spill on April 20th)" which is over 2 times per month. In the last month Knoller has fed information to The Wall Street Journal showing that Obama has already golfed more in 20 months than his predecessor did in his entire two terms of 8 years!

According to Knoller; by the end of August, 2010, Obama will have taken nine vacation trips (48 days). Among the locations were Chicago (twice) and Asheville, N.C., for long weekends; Hawaii, a week and Martha's Vineyard for over two weeks.

In addition, by Knoller's count; the Obamas have enjoyed, at tax payer's expense, 33 gala night events away from the White House. Some are quasi-business related, but also include date nights with the first lady at the best restaurants in Washington, New York and Paris, and theater outings like the one in June they took to see Thurgood at the Kennedy Center. The Obama's have also stayed at Camp David for 14 visits to the presidential retreat for 32 days. Add up just these days and it totals 113 days. Then add in the 7 day trip to get the Nobel prize and the 39 days golfing which equals a total of 159 days out of the short 20 months (608 days) or over 26% of the time he has occupied the White House. This does not count the holidays and weekends that are family "non-working" days.

During the those same 20 months since Obama began his regime, the average American family has taken less that 21 days of vacation, IF they are employed.