On Selective Memory (or why the GOP are completely batshit crazy)

I almost made it to the weekend without having another rant over-take me and drag me kicking and screaming to my netbook to bash out another cyber-yell about something or other. But then as I was perusing the news networks websites (and I use the word "news" hesitantly) this evening I saw a lead piece on CNN.com about how the GOP is taking offense to the First Family going on a vacation in Maine next week.

You see, according to the GOP (the initials used to mean Grand Old Party, I prefer the modern designation, Geriatric Old Perverts) the situation in the Gulf of Mexico is at such a crucial stage that the President really should just stay at the Whitehouse and monitor the situation from there as opposed to Maine where, apparently, there are no phones, televisions, fax machines or broadband internet hook-ups for him to use. Intelligent people, like me and the 3 other people that read this blog, realize straight away that this is merely an attempt to make the President look like a shirker. A guy that is more interested in taking time off, rather than putting in a full day at the office. And that is where my head explodes just a little bit.

First off, if the situation in the Gulf of Mexico as BP tries to stem the flow of oil from the sea floor is that critical, if it were to go all pear-shaped, just what the fuck is he supposed to do about it from the Oval Office? Use mind-control? Pray? Bust out his cape with the big 'O' on the back and go and personally plug the hole? The obvious answer is of course, nothing. There is nothing that he could do from the Oval Office that he couldn't do from Maine, but that basic point of logic escapes the nimble minds of the message shapers at 'talking-point central' at the GOP.

Secondly, and this is the part that really frosts my nads, the idea that the GOP would even think it was a remotely good idea to criticise the current occupant's number of vacation days after the nearly three years that Dumbya bush spent "out of the office" just boggles the mind. Think about this for a second. Bush was in office for 8 years but he spent fully 1/3 of that time either at (or going to) his pig farm in Texass (490 days) or Camp David (487 days). As of this weekend the current occupant of the Whitehouse (and interestingly the only one that was actually legally elected to that position this century) has taken a grand total of 65 days at or going to vacation.

So yeah GOP attack-dogs, lets use that as a platform to try and score some points.