Bullshit, Laura Bush had the same sized entourage

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First Ladies Past

The chain e-mail’s author claims that “ here has never been anyone in the White House at any time that has created such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation of the First Lady’s social life.” The author claims that “even Hillary, only had three; Jackie Kennedy one; Laura Bush one.” But the counts for those first ladies are incorrect – and they’re way off.

Stephen Plotkin, reference archivist for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, told us in an e-mail that Jacqueline Kennedy’s office was “headed” by one person, but said that there were “at least 9 people working for Mrs. Kennedy, with the promise of a great many more” during her time at the White House.

Kim Coryat, an archives technician at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library, told us it can be difficult to nail down a precise count of staff considering “White House staffing for all offices ebbs and flows with time.” But she said in an e-mail that White House telephone directory records indicate that Hillary Clinton had at least a staff of 13 as of October 1993; 18 as of April 1997; and 19 as of March 2000.

Lelyveld said that Michelle Obama’s staff was actually no different than that of her predecessor, Laura Bush. “[W]e have exactly the same staff number as Mrs. Bush and our office organization reflects a similar staffing model, so insinuations otherwise are wrong,” she said. Lelyveld said that the White House’s “personnel records indicate” that there were 24 staffers for Laura Bush at some point.

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“In the age of Internet news, people need something to tweet about. Criticizing the president for taking vacation is one way to fill the Twitter vacuum.

However, setting all that aside, just how many vacations has Obama taken since he assumed office in January of 2009 and how does that compare to George W. Bush’s record?

Updated August 20, 2016 to factor in current vacation figures and projections.

Last December, CBS News reported that the number of vacation days President Obama has taken since the beginning of his presidency stood at 161 days. If you add the 28 days of vacation he has taken this year his total comes to 189 days. If you add his current vacation in Martha’s Vineyard to the mix that still puts him at under 200 days so far. Even if he took every day off the rest of his term in office that would only add an additional 153 days to his total – still placing him at less than half the vacation days of he predecessor.

However his predecessor, two-term President George W. Bush, took 879 days of vacation, including 77 trips to his Texas ranch according to a report by The Washington Post.

According to The Washington Post, “No modern president took less vacation than Jimmy Carter (79 days), while Ronald Reagan spent 335 days at his beloved California ranch.”

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