it's the lack of any sense of noblesse oblige which differentiates the second Bush presidency from the first.

I haven't read Kevin Phillips' new book about the Bushes, American Dynasty, but I gather from Paul Krugman's review in the New York Review of Books that Phillips would take issue with my contention that George H.W. Bush was motivated to public service by a sense of class obligation:

It's a family that has become accustomed to privilege:

By the mid-twentieth century, connections and crony capitalism had become the family economic staple, with emphasis on the rewards of finance, and instinctive policymaking fealty to the investment business. The Bushes have produced no college presidents or stonemasons, no scientists or plumbing contractors—generally speaking, their progeny have become almost exclusively financial entrepreneurs.

As this quote suggests, the Bush dynasty differs from other American families that have mixed wealth with political prominence. While the Kennedys and the Rockefellers may have a sense of entitlement, they also display a sense of noblesse oblige—what one might call an urge to repay, with charitable contributions and public service, their good fortune. The Bushes don't have that problem; there are no philanthropists or reformers in the clan. They seek public office but, if anything, they seem to feel that the public is there to serve them.

I'm more than happy to bow to Phillips' vastly superior knowledge of the Bush family. Perhaps I was fooled by the ability of Bush pere to hide his cravenness under a veneer of service to the public, I'd certainly buy that.

On the other hand, his son doesn't even bother to try.

One thing that Bush pere and fils certainly have in common is that they both vacation for an extraordinary amount of their time in office. I recall distinctly that Bush the First took an extended vacation immediately after winning the election (and Clinton provided a sharp contrast to that by immediately going to work after his win), and that he always seemed to be on hiatus somewhere or another. Bush the Second has continued in this family tradition.

On uggabugga there's an excerpt from an August 2001 article in the Washington Post which calculated that up to that moment, Bush had spent 42% of his time in office on vacation. This estimate is used to compare the number of hours Bush spent vacationing prior to 9/11 against the one single hour he has allowed to be interviewed by the chairmen and vice-chairmen of the commission investigating that calamity. Take a look at the graphic, it's quite illuminating.