Right-wing columnist Marc Thiessen hypocritically attacked President Obama for taking a weekend trip during the crisis in Ukraine, ignoring the fact that, not only did President Bush deliver remarks on the 2008 invasion of Georgia while on vacation, but those remarks were delivered while Thiessen himself was Bush's head speechwriter.

In a March 10 Washington Post column, Thiessen criticized Obama for his recent trip to Florida during an ongoing crisis in Ukraine. Thiessen claimed “It's winter for democracy in Ukraine but for Obama and Biden it's spring break” and went on to claim that Obama should have delivered remarks from the Oval Office: 

While more Russian forces were pouring into Crimea this past weekend, and Russian legislators announced their readiness to annex the Ukrainian province, where was our commander in chief? Monitoring events in the Situation Room? Meeting with the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon? Holding an emergency meeting of NATO leaders? Nope. He was enjoying the Florida sunshine with his family at an oceanfront resort in Key Largo.

And Vice President Biden? He was on vacation in the Virgin Islands.

It's winter for democracy in Ukraine, but for Obama and Biden it's spring break.

Both the president and the vice president go on vacation. At the same time. During an international crisis. You can't make this up.

If the president wants to use body language to send a message to Russia, the way to do it is to lean across the Resolute desk, look into a television camera and tell America and the world what is at stake in Ukraine -- and what he intends to do to help the Ukrainian people.

But Obama is not the first president to deliver remarks about Russian military aggression while on vacation -- a fact that Thiessen, of all people, should know. On August 16, 2008, during the Russian invasion into Georgia, President George W. Bush delayed a planned vacation for one day, then delivered remarks on the situation from his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Those remarks were likely written, at least partially, by Thiessen himself who was Bush's chief speechwriter at the time.  

Other media outlets have criticized the timing of Obama's trip to Florida without mentioning Bush's 2008 trip to Crawford, and Thiessen has recently attacked Obama  for “emboldening” Putin while advocating for the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline as a solution to the ongoing crisis.