{"id":11135,"date":"2013-12-24T11:07:44","date_gmt":"2013-12-24T19:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=11135"},"modified":"2014-11-11T12:10:36","modified_gmt":"2014-11-11T20:10:36","slug":"fox-nation-vs-reality-the-obama-vacation-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=11135","title":{"rendered":"Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Obama Vacation Myth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just as every December comes with the annual Fox News War on Christmas, there is a right-wing ritual that engages whenever President Obama and his family take a vacation. The wingnut whine factory ratchets up its outrage at the deplorable notion of a presidential holiday, particularly if the president isn’t a Republican whose vacations are always proper and well deserved.<\/p>\n

\"Fox<\/a><\/p>\n

The latest hissy fit being thrown by the right comes from the Fox News community website Fox Nation (whose many documented lies can be found in the acclaimed ebook Fox Nation vs. Reality<\/a>). The article sports a shocking headline that asserts that President Obama has taken more vacation time than private sector workers – as if that comparison had any relevance to anything. After all, how many private sector workers are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, even while they are on vacation?<\/p>\n

But even the obvious inaptness of the example doesn’t come close to the dishonesty proffered by the Fox Nationalists. Their source is CNSNews, a division of Brent Bozell’s uber-rightist Media Research Center. CNSNews in turn cites as its source the rabidly right-wing Government Accountability Institute (GAI), which was founded and run by the same pseudo-journalistic charlatans who bring you Breibart News.<\/p>\n

GAI’s report takes data from the Bureau of Labor Management and spins it into an unrecognizable slop of fraudulent PR. They state that Obama’s average vacation days per year (21.5) exceeds that of private sector workers who have been at their jobs for five years, which GAI reports as 19 days. However, a quick glance at the actual BLM data (pdf)<\/a> shows that the 19 day figure is a mean average that is brought down by the 20% of workers who get less than 15 days of vacation, and some as little as two days. In fact, the number of employees who get 15-19 days off is only about 20%. The majority of private sector workers (60%) get greater than 20 days of vacation. So the truth that GAI and Fox is concealing is that most private sector workers get more vacation than President Obama. That, of course, is the complete opposite of what their headline and article assert.<\/p>\n

And just to add some context, these conservative dissemblers also fail to note that Obama has taken far fewer days off than his predecessor, George W. Bush. Obama’s average of 21.5 vacation days per year makes him look like a workaholic compared to Bush’s 110 day average<\/a> per year – more than five times Obama’s. But if you’re a rich white Republican you can’t be accused of being lazy or shiftless when you are enjoying some leisure time at your ranch in Crawford or on your yacht in Kennebunkport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just as every December comes with the annual Fox News War on Christmas, there is a right-wing ritual that engages whenever President Obama and his family take a vacation. The wingnut whine factory ratchets up its outrage at the deplorable notion of a presidential holiday, particularly if the president isn’t a Republican whose vacations are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Obama Vacation Myth","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[183,527],"class_list":["post-11135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-barack-obama","tag-fox-nation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-2TB","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7134,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=7134","url_meta":{"origin":11135,"position":0},"title":"Most Hysterical Headline Of The Year: Palin Pulverizes Obama","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/22\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I know it's only May, but this is going to be tough to beat: How anyone could take seriously the notion that Sarah Palin would provide any intellectual competition for President Obama is utterly unfathomable. This is the woman who thinks that a \"gotcha\" question is \"What newspapers do you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7477,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=7477","url_meta":{"origin":11135,"position":1},"title":"Even Fox Nation’s Vacation Coverage Is Blatantly Biased","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/2\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The Republican Press Release Agency known as Fox News can't even report trivial side issues without resorting to pathetic and insulting misrepresentations. Here is how Fox Nation is portraying the news that both President Obama and Mitt Romney are taking a few days of R & R: Notice that the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20081,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=20081","url_meta":{"origin":11135,"position":2},"title":"Fox Nation vs. Reality: On Abandoning Israel – Who Says Obama Has Been “Terrific”","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/3\/2014","format":false,"excerpt":"OK, first of all this is not an article about the tragic conflict in the Middle East that has been raging for decades. There will be no taking of sides or opinionating on blame. This is about how Fox News purposefully contorts their coverage to make President Obama look bad.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fox Nation","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnation-reality-netanyahu.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnation-reality-netanyahu.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnation-reality-netanyahu.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10806,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=10806","url_meta":{"origin":11135,"position":3},"title":"Fox Nation vs. Reality: Putting Words In The President’s Mouth","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/30\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The determination of Fox News to criticize President Obama over anything that he says or does is well established. They have a knee-jerk negative response to his every utterance, even if he is agreeing with them. But apparently that isn't even an aggressive enough expression of disgust. So now they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5455,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=5455","url_meta":{"origin":11135,"position":4},"title":"Fox Nation vs. Reality: Obama And The Jews","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/26\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Here we go again. Fox Nation posts another item whose only purpose is to mercilessly twist the truth until it chokes to death. The item posted on Fox Nation features a headline with ominous tones for President Obama's acceptance in the Jewish community. As you can see from the comments,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4789,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4789","url_meta":{"origin":11135,"position":5},"title":"Fox Nation vs. Reality: On Israel","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/3\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the inaugural edition of a new feature: Fox Nation vs. Reality. There have so many incidents of the Fox Nationalists distorting stories from other sources that it warrants special attention to illustrate their relentless dishonesty. A recent example was their twisting of an Associated Press story with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11135"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22258,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11135\/revisions\/22258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}