From the story -

Scott Stanzel, Bush’s deputy press secretary who often traveled with the president when he was away from the White House, said that changing locations provided a good opportunity to escape the hustle and bustle of Washington.

“President Bush, on the weekends, would often go to Camp David because the size of the bubble you are in expands, so you can go out for a walk or bike ride without having to arrange security detail,” he said.

Stanzel was in Crawford with Bush for a number of crises that could not have been planned for, like the conviction of Saddam Hussein, the death of President Ford and the assassination of Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto.

Bush was notified of Bhutto’s death immediately and delivered a statement to the press pool. “It would have almost been like we were at the White House in terms of the teams that would convene and talk about the issues surrounding that assassination,” Stanzel said.

The problem for Obama, Stanzel said, is the visuals that could come out of his trip. A picture of Obama playing golf alongside images from the Gulf could send a negative message.

Fox News – Obama Wraps Up Relaxing Vacation Amid GOP Criticisms

From the story –

Scott Stanzel, former deputy press secretary for President George W. Bush, told Fox News, “at a time he could be setting an example…he has chosen not to do that.”
…
Bush was often criticized for the length of time downtime he spent at his ranch, but as Stanzel points out, presidents aren’t really afforded vacation time.

“We had an infrastructure in Crawford where the president continued to perform the duties much the way he might when he was at the White House,” Stanzel told Fox News.

Washington Post – An active first family is on the move in Maine

From the story –

And Scott Stanzel, a deputy press secretary during the administration of George W. Bush, said on Fox News that the president could be “setting an example” but “has chosen not to do that.”

If Democrats think that focusing on the occasional, less-than-articulate sound bite from a Republican official is the way to maintain their grasp on Congress, then they are even more out of touch than the majority of Americans perceive them to be. That’s a strategy for the 202 area code. It might gain attention from Beltway media types and the chattering class, but it does nothing to address the real concerns of voters throughout the country. If Democrats want to maintain their majority, they have to advance policies worthy of voter support. Obsessive focus on blast e-mail messages to reporters criticizing comments of Republicans is the surest way for Democrats to take their place in the minority.

Here’s the chart (click to enlarge):

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UPDATE: Today’s POLITICO Arena question was “Will tepid job growth hurt or help Dems in November?” Below is my response, which can also be seen here.

Incumbent Democrats may be the only people finding satisfaction in the fact that the federal employee rolls grew by more than 400,000. These government jobs accounted for 95 percent of the jobs created this month. As for as the unemployment rate “falling” to 9.7 percent, context is important. Prior to the credit market freeze in September 2008, the highest monthly unemployment rate during President George W. Bush’s two terms was 6.3 percent. The overall average monthly unemployment rate during his 8 years in office was 5.3 percent. The tax relief President Bush signed into law pulled America out of the recession he inherited in 2001 and spurred six years of uninterrupted economic growth and a record 52 straight months of job creation.

President Obama’s policies to deal with economic challenges have been diametrically opposite to his predecessor’s. Obama’s higher taxes, job-killing government intervention and massive deficit spending have sent us down a destructive fiscal path. His policies have failed based on his own yardstick. President Obama has not held unemployment under 8 percent as his administration promised would happen if the massive $787 billion government spending package was adopted by Congress.

10 Questions for the Obama Press Conference
By Scott Stanzel

Tomorrow, President Obama will have his first formal, solo press conference since July 22, 2009. By my calculation, that means the champion of transparency and openness in government will have gone 309 days (more than 44 weeks) without going toe to toe with the White House press corps. As someone who spent more than 7 years working on media relations for President George W. Bush in the White House and on his campaign staff, I can assure you reporters will come loaded for bear and have many pent up questions for President Obama.

Because President Obama has been stiffing the White House press corps for so long, press secretary Robert Gibbs and his staff have their work cut out for them in helping their boss prepare for tomorrow’s press conference. While I’m sure the Obama press office staff has been compiling potential press conference topics for weeks (if not months) and reporters likely have notebooks full of questions they had hoped to ask the president over the last 10 months, I thought I’d offer a few suggestions of my own in order to help both sides get the most out of this rare occasion. In a normal presidential press conference, 15 to 20 questions would be asked and answered in 45 to 75 minutes. Because President Obama tends to give very long answers to questions (some town hall answers have run more than 10 minutes), I’ve prepared just 10 questions for the Fourth Estate to consider employing at tomorrow’s press conference:

1. Mr. President, since it has been more than 10 months since your last solo press conference, can you tell us why you’ve been avoiding us? Are you afraid of the scrutiny from a free press? What message does this send to countries like China or Russia, both nations which we continually urge to create greater press freedoms?

2. At the signing of the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act on May 18, you invited the pool of reporters into the Oval Office to watch you sign the bill, but you refused to answer any questions. Were you trying to be ironic?

3. About a month ago, historic floods ravaged Nashville and other parts of Tennessee. The waters caused more than a billion dollars in damage and killed more than 30 Americans. Have you ever considered visiting the state to see the damage for yourself and to console the victims of this disaster? If yes, what prevented you from going? If no, don’t you think they deserve your attention?

4. Six months ago, Umar Abdulmutallab attempted to set off a bomb in order to kill passengers aboard a flight landing in Detroit. Instead of questioning him as an enemy combatant, your administration chose to question him for less than an hour and then read him his Miranda rights so he could obtain a lawyer. Was this your decision? If it wasn’t, should you have been in the loop? If it was, do you think this was enough time to obtain valuable information in order to prevent potential future attacks?

5. Shortly after the Christmas Day bomber incident, your Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said “the system worked” and indicated Abdulmutallab was likely a lone actor. Subsequently, it was discovered he had deep ties to terrorists and your Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair recently stepped down because of the critical intelligence lapses in the matter. Should Secretary Napolitano also step down?

6. It’s been more than a month since oil began spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, but since we haven’t had an opportunity to talk with you about it, why has it taken you so long to visit the Gulf Coast? You are going there on Friday of this week, but it seems your Administration has been slow to recognize the severity of the issue. Do you wish you had paid greater attention to the spill? And, is the federal government in charge of the response, as Carol Browner said this week? Or, is BP in charge, as Admiral Thad Allen said this week?

7. Way back in March, you signed a health care overhaul that only Democrats in Congress supported and 15 percent of House Democrats actually opposed. Is this what you meant when you talked about “changing the way Washington works” as a candidate?

8. Shortly after Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the law to try to enforce federal immigration laws at the state level, members of your Administration questioned its constitutionality. However, weeks later Attorney General Eric Holder and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano admitted they hadn’t even read the law. The law is less than 20 pages long. Isn’t it reasonable to ask members of your team to read laws before they criticize them?

9. In March, the North Koreans sunk a South Korean navy ship in an act of extreme provocation. Since we haven’t had a chance to talk to you in quite some time, do you still plan to “sit down without precondition” with Kim Jung Il, as you pledged you would during the presidential campaign? If you plan to keep that pledge, what will you say to the North Korean despot about this attack on South Korea?

10. Since it may be after Election Day before we are able to ask you questions again, will you state now, for the record, if you authorized members of your staff to offer Rep. Joe Sestak a job so he would drop his primary challenge to U.S. Senator Arlen Specter?

Those questions should get the ball rolling for a lively presidential debate. Set your DVRs to save the fireworks, folks. Mr. Transparency may not make an appearance for again for several hundred days.

This move by President Obama seems to be a direct response to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s call for the Obama team to “do its job” on our border. Apparently, she got their attention.

During his time in office, President George W. Bush doubled the number of border patrol agents (from 9,000 to 18,000) and increased funding for border security and enforcement by more than 160 percent. Under President Bush’s leadership, the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement teams devoted to removing fugitive aliens from the U.S. grew from 15 to 75 in order to address the problem inside the United States. In addition, E-Verify, a system for verifying worker eligibility, was greatly expanded and states like Arizona began requiring local businesses to use it to further weaken the attraction for illegal immigration.

Even with all of those efforts to better secure the border, the violence between warring drug cartels in Mexico has caused understandable concern among Americans living in the border region. President Obama’s belated acknowledgement of the legitimate fear of violence spilling into our country is at least a step in the right direction.

If we are to ever truly get beyond identity politics, isn’t it someone’s right to keep their private life PRIVATE? Whether they are gay or straight matters not to their ability to do a job. What matters is their expressed views on policy. I find this type of debate exhausting and silly. Below is my post, which you can also read on POLITICO.

With respect to Andrew Sullivan, I wasn’t aware that he actually had any credibility left – journalistic or otherwise. He has so marginalized himself with his philosophical shifts and mean-spirited screeds that I don’t know a single person who takes him seriously.

Isn’t it time we got beyond identity politics? Isn’t that the sort thing the Obama victory was supposed to retire? We can lay blame with lawmakers who still seek to divide people into groups based on race, sexual orientation, religion or other characteristics. However, I think the news media also shares responsibility for the constant focus on these issues.

It doesn’t require much thinking or homework to report on those traits. What does necessitate some research is examining someone’s policy views. Does Kagan support unfettered free speech? Does she believe in the right to bear arms? What are her views on Congress forcing Americans to purchase health insurance? And yes, what are her views on marriage and the rights of gay Americans? All of those can and should be examined without the gossiping about her private life that parades as reporting.

When candidates for office are continually probed or vilified for issues that have very little to do with their ability to effectively serve in the position they are seeking, it acts as a deterrent for other qualified individuals to serve. All Americans lose when that happens, because we need the best and brightest involved in the political arena to debate the big challenges facing our country.

Former Deputy Press Secretary Scott Stanzel said he expects the book to offer a “compelling look inside the Oval Office by revealing how he dealt with complex issues and made decisions he believed were in the best interests of our country.” Stanzel has been in touch with Bush recently, but said he didn’t discuss the book.

It’s already known — and should come as no surprise — that Bush will tackle the 9/11 attacks. So what else should he address? Stanzel said he’d like to see Bush revisit his unsuccessful push for immigration reform in 2007 — and explain why he didn’t respond to “unfair attacks” during the 2008 campaign from Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain.

Just prior to my comments in the story are quotes from Matt Latimer, who served as a speechwriter at the White House. It makes sense that Latimer, who tried to make a few bucks by taking shots at former coworkers and President Bush, would suggest the president criticize his former aides. That view represents the worst of Washington. Here is a refresher on my views of his approach – The One Whose Name Cannot Be Spoken.