President Bush is spending the month of August based out of Crawford, Texas, on what his aides call a "working vacation". This isn't really news, since he's vacationed at his ranch for years, but it always makes me smile. You see, the White House press corps hates Crawford.
The press corps that followed Bush to Crawford, 60 strong, holed up in an uncomfortably muggy gym while pressing Administration officials for information on the President's activities. Temperatures soar frequently to over 100 degrees in "broiling parched Crawford, Texas.""The press corps likes a cool ocean breeze and maybe even a cold beer," said Shields. "Presidents Reagan, Kennedy, and Clinton all vacationed near the sea, and thus spared themselves a churlish press corps."
Even the President himself acknowledged that his choice of vacation destination was not the press's. "I know a lot of you wish you were in the East Coast, lounging on the beaches, sucking in the salt air," he said to a group of reporters in Crawford. "The national media will hate it," Bush told Republican Senators, "but I'm going where it's 98 degrees average temperature, day and night."