September 11, 2001
Prior to September 11, 2001, President Bush had been receiving growing criticism for the amount of vacation time he was taking. Due to the nature of the U.S. presidency there is no strict or clear guidance regarding days that the president can take off. Different sources claim that the president was averaging between two or three days off a week. He spent most of August 2001 on a near month-long vacation.
Eight months after Bush had taken office, however, a single day was to define the first term of his presidency. On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked airliners and flew them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, destroying both 110-story skyscrapers, and into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. An aircraft intended to attack the White House was brought down in Pennsylvania, following a struggle between terrorists and the aircraft's passengers. On the evening of the day of these attacks, the President declared a War on Terror. Soon afterwards, President Bush's approval rating, calculated by the Gallup Organization, rose to 90%, the highest approval rating it had recorded for any president. Gallop begun its polls during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Read more about this topic: George W. Bush's First Term As President Of The United States
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