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American Morning

Bush Taking Some Heat For Month-Long Trip to Ranch in Crawford, Texas

Aired August 09, 2002 - 09:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: It's a question you'd normally hear from the likes of comedian Jerry Seinfeld: "What's the deal with presidents and working vacations?" No punchline today, but as you know, President Bush is taking some heat in different corners for his month-long trip to his ranch in Crawford, Texas. It's not going to be all rest and play, though. Truth be told, outside-the-beltway getaways are rich in presidential history.
For that, Jeff Greenfield, our senior political analyst here in New York.

Good morning to you, my friend.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Good day.

HEMMER: I don't know about you, but western Texas in August, 110 degrees. I don't know if that's the place where I want to get away for a little bit of vacation.

GREENFIELD: You raise an interesting point, because people are always ragging on presidents and politicians for taking vacations. You know, reporters have a real interest on where presidents go. Jimmy Carter used to go down to Plains, Georgia, another garden spot. Reporters hated that. They would stay at motels hundreds of miles away. When Ronald Reagan vacationed in the Santa Innes (ph) Mountains, north of Santa Barbara, the reporters go to stay at the Biltmore Hotel, a five-star hotel, on the company's nickel, for weeks. They'd bring their families out. And then they'd stand up at night with the handouts and say, this is John Smith, with the president. They were not in the same zip code as the president.

So it's just presidents who ought to be asked about this.

HEMMER: You know, I thought it was kind of interesting to see some of these poll numbers. If you go back to last year, more people disagree with the president going to Crawford for a month a year ago, prior to 9-11 than this year, I think 12-15 points higher say, you know what, that's OK.

GREENFIELD: You know, I find a loot of this just ridiculous on both sides, the idea that if the president can't go away in August, when can he go away? It's a pretty tough job, you might acknowledge that. At the same time, it used to be -- they used to be more honest. When Teddy Roosevelt would go into national parks on these hunting trips, it wasn't a working vacation; he was on a vacation. When Harry Truman used to go down to Key West, Florida, he would go down -- this is shot of Roosevelt with the press following him, which he didn't like. They once busted a reporter for that.

Harry Truman used to go down to Florida. He'd put on these loud Hawaiian shirts. He would play poker. He would drink bourbon with his friends. And that wasn't a working vacation. But now, I guess they're afraid because of all of this inherent populist distrust of politicians. If the guy says, I'm chilling, they say, wait a minute, you make all this money, you shouldn't be. So now it's a "working vacation."

HEMMER: And the fact of the matter is, everyone in Washington clears out. I heard Mitch Daniels earlier in the week. He said, you know, Congress has gone on their break, the president is in Texas, and he says, you know what, Washington is a really nice place this team of year.

GREENFIELD: It's an old line. Howard Baker used to say, the worst thing that ever happened to Washington was the invention of air- conditioning, because Congress used to shut down for the year by July 4th.

HEMMER: Yes, get out of the swamp.

GREENFIELD: There was a 19th century judge who once said, no man's life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature in session. So maybe we don't want these people working so hard.

But I'm also remembering in 1998, the day after President Clinton gave his mea sort of culpa, about Monica. They went up to Martha's Vineyard, and there's a famous shot of them walking to the helicopter, Bill on one side, Hillary on the other, Chelsea very much in the middle, and that was a vacation he was probably in dire need of.

HEMMER: Let's change the topic here quickly. There's an article out today in "The New York Times." It talks about Democratic secession to the nomination for president in '04. Everybody might be thinking, it's August of 2002, but guys like you love to study this stuff. What it's suggesting right now is that Al Gore has a long way to go although not -- point of fact, I think he's out there campaigning to really test the waters see how much strength he has. What's your take on that?

GREENFIELD: It's pretty simple. The Democratic Party is caught in this bind. A lot of Democrats think Al Gore blew it in 2000. He had peace and prosperity. He had a far less experienced candidate, opponent in Bush, and didn't win. But then the other Democrats say, yes, but he won 500,000 more votes than the other guy. And in his mind, one of his closest advisers in 2000 said to me when I was working on my book in the campaign, said it was like there was a divine plot to keep Al Gore from the White House, and if you're Al Gore, you got to be thinking I'm entitled to run again, and if you're the Democratic Party, you got to be thinking, he did get more votes, but he wasn't the strongest candidate.

And for what it's worth, I generally like not to focus on this stuff for another year.

HEMMER: I think that's good strategy.

GREENFIELD: So I'm going on vacation.

HEMMER: Yes, you are. Enjoy it.

GREENFIELD: Working vacation. I'm certain you will be working.

HEMMER: Thank you, Jeff. See you in a couple weeks, OK.

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