One of the first freakouts the right engineered after Barack Obama became president occurred only one week after he took office in 2009. They managed to win a full article in the New York Times dedicated largely to the fact that the new occupant of the Oval Office showed up to work on the weekend in business casual attire and allowed his staff to do the same.
If Mr. Obama’s clock is looser than Mr. Bush’s, so too are his sartorial standards. Over the weekend, Mr. Obama’s first in office, his aides did not quite know how to dress. Some showed up in the West Wing in jeans (another no-no under Mr. Bush), some in coats and ties.
So the president issued an informal edict for “business casual” on weekends — and set his own example. He showed up Saturday for a briefing with his chief economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers, dressed in slacks and a gray sweater over a white buttoned-down shirt. Workers from the Bush White House are shocked.
“I’ll never forget going to work on a Saturday morning, getting called down to the Oval Office because there was something he was mad about,” said Dan Bartlett, who was counselor to Mr. Bush. “I had on khakis and a buttoned-down shirt, and I had to stand by the door and get chewed out for about 15 minutes. He wouldn’t even let me cross the threshold.”
This would not be the last time that President Obama was accused of not having a proper respect for the dignity of the office.
I have a really bad memory except for certain things. It’s a long time ago now, but I still remember the story the new Bush administration engineered in the early days of Dubya’s presidency about the freaking dress code and its importance. I will quote this at length:
One of the very first decisions President Bush made after his inauguration was to reinstate the White House dress code. Like much of what he does, this move seemed to be primarily aimed at pleasing his father. It can’t be easy having George Sr. for a dad, and it’s too bad about the president’s inner child, but it’s hard to watch Bush use policy to gain his father’s approval and not feel uncomfortable — it’s like we’ve walked in on something really private.
The dress code was established initially by the first Bush administration, and, at the time, it specified that women wear knee-length skirts and stockings in the West Wing. In other words, during the administrations of Ronald Reagan and Bush the Elder, only the boys wore pants. Because this was an idea whose time came — and went — in the Paleozoic era, the minor style revolution that followed with the election of Bill Clinton was totally inadvertent.
“On Inauguration Day, I was wearing a pantsuit,” Dee Dee Myers, Clinton’s former press secretary, told Chris Bury on “Nightline” two days after George W. Bush’s inauguration. “It was a very cold day in Washington and when I came into the West Wing, I actually broke what had been a Reagan and Bush protocol rule, which was: Women weren’t allowed to wear slacks. And so we sort of changed that protocol right from the very beginning, accidentally. I don’t think any of us realized there was a dress code that officially or unofficially discouraged or barred women from wearing slacks.”
The no-pants rule was never rehabilitated, so after the recent dress code announcement, many feared the worst: nude pantyhose. When Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer eventually declared that “the [women’s] pantsuits can stay,” women outside the Amish community breathed a collective sigh of relief.
He made it clear, however, that in this administration, West Wing women would be required to wear “appropriate business attire” and men would be expected to wear suits and ties at all times. The point, as one aide told the New York Times, was “to treat the office with respect.”
In case that isn’t clear enough for you, even back in 2001, the right-wing media was geared up to amplify the point.
“Mr. Bush is restoring the dignity that used to be associated with the Presidency,” wrote Tom Barrett on Christianlink.com. “Gone are the blue jeans, tie-dyes, T-shirts and jogging shorts that were considered appropriate attire during Clinton’s Presidency.”
“Out are the 20-something, denim-wearing, pony-tailed Clintonites known for strewing pizza boxes throughout the halls,” wrote Joseph Curl of the Washington Times. “In are the 30- and 40-something, box-cut, scrubbed-clean, suit-and-tie-wearing Bushies.”
This whole narrative was tiresome from the beginning, but it was at least in part based on the fact the new president wanted to run his White House in a way that would meet the approval of his father. Running the executive branch of the federal government is a serious job and Poppy Bush thought his staff should look the part.
This is what I think about when I read President Trump’s tweets.
It’s not that I ever thought criticisms that the Clinton administration (as opposed to the president himself) didn’t uphold the dignity of the office were serious. It’s just that I look at what Trump does and I try to imagine how Poppy must feel about it.
thing.
This is a decent example.
Here’s an even more breathtaking, current one.
Assholes will be assholes.
So arrogant they don’t even try to hide it.
. . . a residence there.”
As I said, breathtaking assholery.
Lawyers, Guns, and Money had a great post on it. Follow the link to a good article on Christy potentially blowing up the eastern seaboard transportation network within weeks of being elected.
“an awful person’s horrible administration”
But, as I am sure you know…Democrats are also undignified, so both sides are the same.
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Surely he approves of Trump always wearing a suit and a very long tie in the WH — even at that WH picnic. (That last is similar to Nixon wearing wingtips for a stroll on the beach.)
Not that whatever Poppy (GWB) or any other murderous former high-level government officials think about anything should carry any weight — particularly as many applauded Trump’s missile strike on Syria and there weren’t any dissenting voices.
Well, at least we avoided Hillary Clinton and her pantsuits ruining the place, right? I know you spent a great deal of time and effort analyzing her wardrobe and looks, and I am sure you are quite relieved to dodge THAT bullet!
Thank you for your valued contributions on preventing any pantsuits being behind the Oval Office desk.
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. . . the place. And it wasn’t their place.” [translation: it’s ours . . . our Village]
I believe that’s verbatim from the late, unlamented Father of High Broderism.
Here at the pond you’re among the 80+%. In the wider world, you’re among the 41%, down from 43% as of election day 2017. So, whatever you think you’re doing, it doesn’t seem to be working.
And you remain blind as to why Bernie Sanders has become the most popular national politician. Since circa 1920, Republicans have been and continue to be the enemy of rational socialists. Doesn’t much matter if they self identify as circa 2000 Republicans or neoliberal Democrats, but unlike you, we don’t conflate those two enemies.
Everybody knows that. Guess I should have typed “Poppy (or his son GWB)…” in my comment to avoid the anti-leftist nitpickers here.
“leftist”
Yeah… You’re just lying now. You damn well know that isn’t how the English language works.
. . . threads here:
. . . here.”
Or, alternatively, just to make a modicum of sense.
It’s really the problem with living in your own reality. As circumstances change, your reality has to change to match. So to make even a modicum of sense becomes like trying to catch fog in your hands.
Like spending months, years even, hijacking every front page diary to turn it into attacking Clinton, and then starting an ‘open thread’ with the proclamation you abhor off topic comments in front page diaries.
.
So many things come to my mind when I evaluate how the Trump administration and Trump himself have essentially destroyed the dignity of the Office. He alone, even dressed in expensive suits, has shown virtually no respect or honor as President. He wears the required apparel, but he fails on every level of how he conducts himself here and abroad.
His aggressive posture and invasion of others’ personal spaces
His childish responses in social media to perceived slights and to actual ones
His mocking of disabled people, and of his opponents in politics
His inability to tell the truth, telling flat-out lies that are easily disproven
His lack of self-awareness, compassion, comprehension, and humility
His embarrassing lack of education and literacy. His lack of any knowledge of history, not just American history, but of world events.
Honestly, the list is probably infinite. He debases the Office of President every day in more ways than we can count. Old school Republicans probably cringe every time he opens his yap, but the Trump fans giggle with glee because he is just what they wanted: obnoxious, rude, unconventional, and hateful.
Just like they are.
While I agree with your characterization of Trump, I urge caution on the dignity of the Office. That a DC-centric social construct with no inherent qualities. No dignity in killing for the spoils, robbing the poor for the rich, and/or not behaving according to accepted social mores of the day, and few Presidents haven’t done that. (Jefferson had a slave as his concubine who was also the half-sister of his dead wife.)
Andrew Jackson “destroyed” that faux dignity, but voters of that time liked him for it. And it was most recently and prominently used in the propaganda for Clinton’s impeachment.
Oh, I agree!
There has NEVER been a dignified POTUS! In particular, all the Democrats have brought nothing but disrepute on the office. FDR and his wheelchair stand out…what with all that war stuff.
And Obama? Pleeeze. Not one dignified moment with THAT family. Did you see how his daughters acted?
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Way to completely miss my point, a habit with you.
Individuals in office should be measured and judged on their behavior and not some artificial standard of the dignity of such an office. Those that want official and continuous dignity from the office of the head of state should look to forming a monarchy — those future kings/queens are trained from the day their born on how to behave in public. Although a few still manage on occasion not to live up to that standard.
Oh I agree!
Except a small quibble…EVERYONE should be judged on their behavior…and the results of their actions. For instance…discussing the clothes a woman wears, and casting way they look in those clothes in a negative light could be considered undignified..in other words, beneath the considerations of an intelligent, civilized person. Or maybe piling on when a person gets sick, and speculating on what might REALLY be wrong with them.
Those could certainly be considered undignified, meaning beneath the dignity.
So we agree!
I just want to take this opportunity to tell you how much I love your posts where you pretend to be a republican! Great writing!
.
It would be interesting to know what Low Energy Jeb had to say.
Errrr, ahhhhh….
Was Monica’s blue dress part of the dress code?
C’mon…
We had a sitting…well, maybe lying down or kneeling…president playing extra-marital, cigar-driven patty cake games in the Oval Orfice while the Secret Service looked out for unexpected intruders in the early 1990s.
Let alone JFK’s alley cat prowls.
We had an early…or not-so-early…Alzheimer’s victim/ex-low level Hollywood B actor who made life and death decisions with his dear little wifey and their favorite astrologer.
We had Nixon…clinically paranoid toward the end…maybe even earlier.
We had a total, slack-jawed fool being run by Dick Cheney in there for 8 years.
And here you are half a century later, talking about White House dress codes and the dignity of the presidency with a straight face!!!???
Please!!!
Obama?
I would have liked to see “the dignity of the presidency” enforced during his run by a total refusal to spend millions on vacations. Or at the very least having the simple class to not allow them to be hyped like he had just won “America’s Got Talent” or some other godawful, fixed “reality show.”
A fixed reality show…which come to think of it is exactly what the last 50+ years or so of U.S. presidential elections have been. At least they were until the recent (totally unexpected by people like you) Trump nonlinearity.
So it goes.
The last president to run a truly dignified presidency?
Dwight David Eisenhower.
And where did he come from?
Flyover country.
HMMMmmmmmm…!!!
AG
P.S. Another, early nonlinearity…the Jimmy Carter show. One of the first electoral nonlinearities to raise its zig-zagging head. They put that one down very neatly, didn’t they. Too bad they can’t do that with Trump, but he is much too dangerous to be allowed to remain in office for 4 years.
So it goes.
Ike?!?? The guy who literally trashed the Oval Office? The lazy dude who couldn’t be bothered to take off his golf spikes before entering the Oval, the People’s-Property-Damager-in-Chief who left divot marks on the pristine Oval Office wood floor? Is that where the big shots like Ike learned how to treat others’ property — in flyover country?
Why he shoulda been investigated over that in Congress in fronta teevee cameras. Or at least run outta town on a golf cart, preferably after giving his MIC Farewell Speech. Then forced to reimburse the gubmint for damages to the People’s House.
Ike … (sigh).
Oh well, at least he didn’t manage to trash the New Deal.
You have no understanding of what he did or the way that he did it. His handling of the European edge of the WW II conflict was a masterpiece of diplomatic maneuvering. Without his efforts, Hitler could well have won. And then where would we be? Minus millions of innocent Jews, just for starters. And a black community in way worse shape than it is today.
Bet on it.
His last effort to save this country was his farewell address attempt to warn us all of the “Military Industrial Complex” which has now morphed into the Deep State that is running this system into the ground.
He was old.
He was sick.
And he kept on trying.
I honor him.
ASG
Well , in my defense I did say we could have let him give that MIC speech before we ran him outta town.
And I did allow for age and poor health by letting him go out on his golf cart, showing my humanitarian side and concern for the elderly.
And notice too I never called for jail time for destruction of public property. Just a little televised Congressional inquiry over GolfSpikesGate — imagine the boffo tv ratings, and all the millions of housewives being deprived of watching Queen for a Day! — followed by impeachment, conviction, and reimbursement. His corp CEO golfing buddies could have chipped in to help pay for a new Oval floor.
Gotta hold ’em accountable, keep the dignity of the Office intact, even for such minor transgressions as damage to Oval Office flooring. When we don’t, they just run amuck — Watergate, IranContra, all the rest.
Call me a strict constructionist when it comes to maintaining the integrity of Oval Office flooring, but that’s where I stand.
The integrity of the Oval Office flooring!!!???
I got yer Oval Office flooring integrity.
Right here!!!
Get real.
AG
Hey, just some light firecracker holiday posting. Thought I would send something up the flag pole, see who would salute.
Not to worry about Ike — he would still qualify as this liberal’s favorite Gooper prez in the 20th C. Even if his MIC speech was a day late and dollar short.
Ike was a diplomat by nature. That’s how he rose through the hornet’s nest of generals to become the Supreme Commander of the European side of WWII. Some might say he was too much of a diplomat, but had he been less so maybe crazy Douglas McArthur would have been in charge, and then who knows what would have happened. Immediate war w/Russia, probably. No money available to rebuild Europe and Japan. A whole new world…probably one much less stable.
He ran his presidency the same way.
A decent man, pretty much trying to do the right thing in a wrong world.
So it went…
From his Farewell Address:
He did keep trying.
Didn’t he.
AG
Unfortunately “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” would not have elected Trump…
And who or what has changed the idea of an “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” into a craven, frightened group of potential victims?
The .01%-owned and controlled mass media.
That’s what!!!
Good job, controllers.
Can you keep it up?
I hope not.
Later…
AG
ag!
Who knew you had such cleverness in you?
Oh, wait, just a typo, you say?
[Gilda]: “Never mind.”
No mistake.
Bet on it.
AG
“It” being your claim that “oval orfice” was “no mistake”, i.e., intended clever wordplay on your part.
If there were any reliable way of determining the truth of that claim.
How do we conclude instead with near-certainty that you’re fulla shit when making that claim?
If it had been intentional, you’d have managed to spell “orifice” correctly.
If your “defense” is seriously “no, really, I really am that stupid/ignorant!”, well then, have it your way. I’ll not be the one to argue the contrary.
This post is a perfect example of the two-dimensional, line-level, stick figure thinking that has taken hold in our culture in general.
Of course, there is a reliable way of determining the truth of that claim. I’ve used it on this site several times. Do a Google search for <“Oval orfice” Gilroy Booman.>
How do you come to that conclusion?
Because you do not think things through, oaguabonita. You kneejerk your way through life, just as do most dedicated Democrats today. When something challenges your almost rigor mortis-like grip on your beliefs, you lash out any which way you can. And you lose almost every time, because you are too stiff to bend.
Too doctrinaire to be able to think.
“Orfice” is funnier. It scans better; it relates to the word “office” more closely. It’s also in common enough usage to appear in the Urban Dictionary. But you wouldn’t know that, both because you don’t do your homework. You also appear to have no real, functional sense of humor at all…another lockstep Dem trait, I have noticed.
As below:
A real backslapper, that one!!!
AG
If you’re to be believed (big if, which I do not assume), then the stupidity lies in imagining that deliberately misspelling “orifice” in “oval orfice” works as intentional humor.
In fact, I have a robust sense of humor. On the rare occasions when I can be bothered to peruse anything you post here, you often trigger it.
Just not in the way you intend.
Like it or not Trump’s tweets are basically his only work product.
Perhaps we should be thankful that when the reactionary coup was finally sprung on America by minoritarian Republicans that this desultory, fractious nincompoop was their chosen leader. Irrevocably damaging, sure, but the unexpected vulnerability of our fragile democracy has been amply demonstrated without, perhaps, becoming fatal. It could have been, or could yet be, much worse.
Prudence suggests digging-in against the next offensives. They will be coming; having radicalised and mobilised their minority constituency the Right has a finite period of time to achieve their objectives. Barring a seismic geopolitical events their timer is ticking down.
What odds on a Reichstag fire? Or a useful facsimile thereof, if no random nutcase volunteers?
I was quite concerned about this at first, and not saying it still couldn’t happen, but Trump seems incapable of making a decision for which he bears responsibility. He seems reckless and yet unable to be bold. I don’t think he has the ticker for it, he seems unstable yet cowardly; combative yet oddly deferential to the institutions he seeks to alienate.
Very good points. But amid the sea of incompetents with which Trump’s surrounded himself, or out among the enabling ideologues using him for their own ends, I fear a small cabal of competence that would be able to pull one off, or at least get away with it long enough to carry out the coup for their figurehead. Why tell the Donald beforehand or at all, anyway? The fool might tweet it out and ruin everything.
Yeah, I think ironically the one thing Trump understands is that the power of the office is vested in him. It must really be frustrating to work with but seems likely to sabotage well-laid plans. Our true worry, perhaps, is that his agency for chaos may incinerate us through sheer incompetence.
Even the devilish destruction planned and perpetrated by the GOP in the meantime seems to be undermined if not thwarted by his behaviours.