Re - socializing and eating out.
First, the President likes to go to Camp David or his ranch, to give the folks in the White House the weekend off. If he stays in town, as Clinton did most of the time, the White House staff has to stay.
Second, Dubya is aware of how much prep it takes the SS to go out to eat or to parties in DC. If it's a public restaurant, the SS has this rule that everybody has to stay, once the Presidential party has arrived. So, they are "frozen" in place until the First party is ready to leave. Dubya is aware of this inconvenience. He's also aware of the extra SS detail required to eat out, or to socialize in DC. It takes more - to stand outside, others to constantly scope the neighborhood, etc. This makes them work in the evening or on weekends, taking them away from their families. He is very aware of how rough the campaigning was on the Secret Service detail - the amount of time they were required to be away from DC and their families. This is a very considerate President - having watched all of this from the position of son of a President, and he made some decisions based on that experience when he became President.
Third, he really doesn't like the DC crowd. The President does on occasion stay in DC, but he has his friends in to stay at the WH and entertains them there. He has retained his friends - people who knew him before he became President and people that he trusts.
The DC crowd is just so jealous that they don't get to rub elbows with the President and his wife at social events, and that they don't get their names in the newspaper's social pages as having held a party that had the President as an attendee. It's a social climber thing, dontcha know.
So, the President chooses to be genuine, considerate, entertain his own personal friends, and it makes the DC crowd really, really jealous to be so excluded.
I say, "tough" - and that's our Cowboy President.
They should be used to it by now but I suppose we are going to have to hear them carping for four more years. Tee hee.
Hi, Truthie. The president is into spending real time with family and quietly at the ranch or Camp David instead of that phonybaloney social crap in the DC scene.