Hey, there's Newt Gingrich on CBN, the news channel that God watches. (Well, they don't have a Nielsen box up there, but everyone is pretty sure He watches their shows, at least during Fox News commercial breaks.) And so this "servant-reporter" asked famed U.S. president and presidential advisor Newt Gingrich for his advice on what Obama should do this year. Gingrich's response? Do nothing at all! Stop being president for a couple months and go bury yourself in a hole or whatever. Play laser tag all day if you want. Whatever you have to do to pretend the country doesn't have any pressing problems for a while and to act like Ronald Reagan.
Shouldn't presidents always take time to reflect on what they are doing? Bush didn't, certainly. And Gingrich didn't when he had an actual job, so that's why he was having an affair whilst telling the president it was illegal to have affairs. Reflection can obviously only be done every decade or so if you're not Reagan, and then you can resume going full-speed-ahead with every dumb idea as it pops into your head.
Except, of course:
Of course, each of those presidents drew some media scrutiny for the amount of time they spent outside of Washington, and Obama has received similar criticism. Republicans mock the president, for instance, for golfing with some regularity on the weekends (when the weather permits).
Aha! We see what you did there, Gingrich. Just setting up the president for more evil golf time, for which you can criticize him. [ The Hill ]
He's right! It must be time to harvest all those watermelons growing on the Whitehouse lawn that are featured in Republicans' most-forwarded email.
I never thought Reagan took all that vacation to "reflect from a distance". I just though he was a lazy fuck.
But if the "secret" to Reagan's awesomeness is the 365 vacation days he took as President, the Bush is even more awesome with 977 days.