The George W. Bush Summer Variety Show

So...here we are again...another August and another long Bush vacation. Time to take a look back at Bush's most infamous vacation: 2001.

Do you remember August 6, 2001? That's ok...neither do I. But it turns out that it was a very significant day in our nation's history.

Not significant for what was done...but  for what wasn't done.

Of course by now, we all know the date and what wasn't done. We know Bush played golf and moved brush around for photo-ops. We also know he ignored the PDB.

One wonders what would have happened if he hadn't ignored the PDB. Would 9/11 have been prevented? We have no way of knowing.

Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer and the State Department's counterterrorism chief from 1989-93 wrote about 40 PDB's during that time.

He notes that they are normally a paragraph or two. The PDB of August 6, 2001 was a page and a half. "That's the intelligence-community equivalent of writing War and Peace," Johnson said.

Upon reading the PDB, Bush should have been on the next plane back to Washington. But it was just vacation as usual for the Frat-Boy-in-Chief.

PDB from 8/6/01 (Note it is PDF file)
Presidential vacation days from Jimmy Carter through Bush
Slate article about PDB
The George W. Bush Paid Vacation Act