I like reading stories about life in the White House. I like the little anecdotes and details about the president’s schedule. But I’m getting tired of hearing people complain about the dress code. It bored me when I saw all those articles about how Bush would flip-out if you tried to enter the Oval Office without a jacket, and it bores me now when people make a fuss about how Obama lets people go business casual on weekends. The important thing is that Obama doesn’t like plates.
If there is one thing Mr. Obama has not gotten around to changing, it is the Oval Office décor.
When Mr. Bush moved in, he exercised his presidential decorating prerogatives and asked his wife, Laura, to supervise the design of a new rug. Mr. Bush loved to regale visitors with the story of the rug, whose sunburst design, he liked to say, was intended to evoke a feeling of optimism.
The rug is still there, as are the presidential portraits Mr. Bush selected — one of Washington, one of Lincoln — and a collection of decorative green and white plates. During a meeting last week with retired military officials, before he signed an executive order shutting down the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Mr. Obama surveyed his new environs with a critical eye.
“He looked around,” said one of his guests, retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, “and said, ‘I’ve got to do something about these plates. I’m not really a plates kind of guy.’ ”
Once those plates are gone, this country can really get back to business.
