Lest we forget...
We need to remind people over and over of where Bush was for a full month before the 9/11 attacks: ON VACATION.
President Bush begins a monthlong vacation on his Texas ranch Saturday, and by the time he returns he will have spent nearly two months of his presidency there.
And that doesn't include the many weekends he's spent at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains.
The White House calls the Texas trip a working vacation and notes that he'll have staff with him to help him attend to presidential chores. He also plans trips outside Texas a few days each week, using the 1,600-acre spread in Crawford, near Waco, as his base.
SNIP
He has spent 14 weekends at Camp David, bringing paperwork and an aide or two along. He played host to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain there. Bush also logged a long weekend last month at the family's Kennebunkport, Maine, compound, throwing horseshoes, playing golf, fishing.
Sensitive to suggestions that the president might be loafing, the White House has dubbed the remainder of August as Bush's "Home to the Heartland Tour."
You can be sure combatting terrorism figured a few notches below building a nature trail in his own private canyon:
Admittedly, the president will spend some time relaxing. Monday morning, before the mercury rose over 100 degrees, Bush went for a 4-mile jog. He then got his daily intelligence briefings and spoke by phone to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and chief of staff Andy Card. In the afternoon, Bush headed out into the wilting heat -- he loves it -- to work on a nature trail he is building in a canyon.
Meanwhile, in Jackson Hole...
While Bush is gone, aides will mind the shop at the White House. Vice President Dick Cheney, won't be among them. He will be at his own vacation home in Jackson Hole, Wyo., until Labor Day, though in contact with Bush whenever needed, a spokeswoman said.
And in cheap hotels and rented apartments in New Jersey and Florida, Al Qaeda operatives were busy at work finalizing their plans to rain death from the skies...