Just FYI

Bush flees White House - again - for a month in Texas

But his staff calls this trip a working vacation

By Scott Lindlaw
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - President Bush seems to bolt from the White House every chance he gets. He begins a month-long vacation on his Texas ranch today, 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.
But there is no denying Bush's impulse to get away from the office.
"I think it is so important for a president to spend some time away from Washington, in the heartland of America," he said the other day, discussing his love for the ranch he and Laura Bush bought two years ago with proceeds from the sale of his share in the Texas Rangers baseball team.
"Whenever I go home to the heartland, I am reminded of the values that build strong families, strong communities and strong character, the values that make our people unique."
Bush prefers wide-open spaces where he can run, hike and walk his dogs to the confining White House environs. He also says he likes to get in touch with "real" people outside the Beltway.
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.
Heartland tour
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."