Since taking office Mr Bush has spent part or all of 384 days in Crawford, according to CBS news.By Edward Luce and Caroline Daniel in Washington
American television viewers are being treated to a new spectacle – the sight of their president, George W. Bush, dressed in a suit on his Texan ranch in Crawford. Mindful of the potential negative publicity of taking a holiday in the midst of the crisis in Lebanon, Mr Bush has cut short his traditional August break to just 10 days and is avoiding the traditional photo-opportunity of clearing brush in his trademark cowboy hat and jeans.
His White House team, some of which has decamped to Crawford with him, is doing its best to create the impression that this is a working holiday. At the weekend Mr Bush huddled with Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, and Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, to discuss the Middle East crisis.
On Thursday he will kick off a mid-term congressional election campaign visit to Green Bay, Wisconsin. And on Friday he will host a Republican National Committee reception in Crawford. He returns to Washington on Sunday. "There is a lot going on right now and unfortunately it does not provide enough time or space for an extended vacation," said Tony Snow, the White House spokesman.
But Republican consultants doubt Mr Bush's industrious vacation schedule will have an impact on his low approval ratings, which have remained below 40 per cent for most of the last year. Frank Luntz, probably the most influential Republican pollster, said Mr Bush had yet to shed the image of incompetence that many Americans derived from his response last year to Hurricane Katrina, which struck America's south-east coastline when he was holidaying in Crawford....
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14246970/