Chris Matthews:   

Gone Fishin'

The only way to make news in this town is to disappear. 

Energy? Patients' Bill of Rights? Forget about it - below the fold. 

This week, George W. Bush has created a bigger buzz than Chandra Levy. 

How dare this windshield cowboy head off to his ranch for 30 days? 

Doesn't he realize the message he is sending? To the cloistered inhabitants of Washington, D.C., the message George W. posted is painful to both ear and ego. "Goodbye," it says. "See you sweathogs in September." 

But what do the 280 million other Americans think of their president taking the longest vacation since Richard Nixon headed back to California his first August in office? 

Bush says they should think of him returning "home to the heartland." He's going home to where, as Lyndon Johnson said when he quit the White House for good, "people know when you're sick and care when you die." Intended message: Bush is heading as deep into that electoral-red part of the map as Bill Clinton, wining and dining with Carly Simon and William Styron, dived into the blue. He's getting back among the real folk, not the "beautiful people" Bill and Hill loved so much. Are the real folks buying it? 

A Gallup Poll says that 55 percent of the folks out there think 30 days is "too much." 

Do they? According to Gallup, 3 percent say the president ought not to get any vacation. Five percent say a week or less; 22 percent say two weeks; 18 percent say three weeks, and 31 percent, the greatest share, say four weeks. 

What's the difference between 30 days and four weeks? He can stay through the last Friday of the fourth week but he's got to be back for work on Saturday? 

Napoleon said, "The only victory in love is to walk away." He meant that the only way to win someone's respect is to show you are willing to make a go of it without them. 

By that marker, this August town-skipping should have made Bush irresistible. It should have been a tonic to the summer blahs, a welcome break from an especially dull political season. After all, it would also have given us some postcards to share. Those pictures of Bush fishing and reading in Crawford, Texas, could have been added to the national photo album of Truman fishing at Key West, Ike hitting the links in Denver, JFK sailing off Hyannis, Nixon in wingtips at San Clemente. 

Here's what I think the problem is: People don't care, deep down, how many hours a president works. 

Jimmy Carter got no extra votes in 1980 for sweating out the oil embargo or the hostage crisis. Voters only cared about double-digit inflation and high interest rates, and the fact we were getting humiliated by a bunch of Third World, American-hating, Old Glory-burning religious types in Iran. 

Did any voter punish Ronald Reagan for not getting to the office until 9, for leaving at 5? 

It's only Washingtonians, lawyers and PR types who believe presidents should be paid the same way they are: by the hour. Beyond the Beltway, fortunately for the economy, the top jobs - being a movie star, for example - tend to be compensated for output, not input. Besides, I have always been impressed with people able to take and enjoy solid, healthy vacations. It shows they've got a life, that they're not afraid to turn their backs on those they've left behind to guard the office. 

Bush's problem is political, not professional. His weakness is not his laziness but his isolation. The last treatment this president needs is a booster shot of oil-and-good-ole-boy Texas culture, listening to conservative fat cats complain about "tree huggers" and how much they hate Barbra Streisand. 

This is no way to get his priorities right, no way to get in touch with the American people. And those are two things the polls - the important polls - say he has to do.