I realize that Republican memes like this one are intended to bait Democrats. But okay. I'll bite.
The Republican National Committee has taken to calling Obama "the Clark Griswold president," a mocking reference to the Chevy Chase character in National Lampoon's "Vacation" movies. With unemployment claims climbing again, the GOP was hoping its criticism would have a certain national resonance. And maybe it will.
Sorry. I just can't help myself. It's crap like this that defines what Digby had written about after the election (and what I have egregiously repeated). This goes beyond hypocrisy -- it's intellectual violence. It's also Rove-style trolling, sure, but it defies all reason and logic to the point of being so upside-down and through-the-looking-glass backwards that it's irresistible. You can't not respond.
There's the "lazy and shiftless" dog whistle, sure, but that's incidental. The nut of this attack is essentially, 1) President Obama is a vacation president, and 2) If you respond citing Bush's record number of vacations you obvious have Bush Derangement Syndrome.
The combination is infuriating. Do we respond? Do we get sucked into the crazy vortex? Perhaps, no. But we can't allow this level of unmitigated nonsense to stand, so we almost have to respond (as I am now).
So for the benefit of sane, rational observers, there simply is no comparison. Benen notes:
Estimates vary slightly, but the Washington Post, citing data from CBS's Mark Knoller, the unofficial keeper of such things, said Obama has taken 48 days off since his inauguration. At this point in Bush's presidency, he'd taken 155 days off.