At Dispatches, Ed mocks Washington Post writer Jennifer Rubin for being aghast at an image of Barack Obama sitting on the desk in the Oval Office, conferring with a denim-clad staff adviser:
There are few things more ridiculous in politics than when some right wing shill cues up the righteous indignation machine over something utterly meaningless. Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post, who has no business writing for any site more credible than the Worldnutdaily, shows how it’s done in reacting to an article that shows a picture of President Obama sitting on his desk and another man wearing — gasp! — blue jeans in the Oval Office! She tweeted:
Good grief Get you rear end off JFK desk, Mr. president .. And jeans in the oval office?! .. Slovenly inside and out
When a fellow conservative pointed out that Reagan and Bush both word jeans in the oval office, Rubin replied:
never ever in oval office.. bush made his chief of staff stand outside oval office on a saturday when not wearing a jacket
Really? Here’s a picture of Bush in the Oval Office without a jacket on. And here’s oneof Reagan with his rear end on that same desk. And here’s one of Reagan wearing jeans in the Oval Office. So we can expect Jennifer Rubin to Tweet a retraction any minute now, right? Or to declare that Bush and Reason were both “slovenly inside and out”? Of course not. And in her defense, there is an obvious difference; those presidents were Republicans. And white.
I’d just like to take a moment to reiterate the virtues of being casual. It doesn’t mean you’re right or wrong, better or worse– if it did, then surely Reagan/Bush and Obama would cancel each other out– or even that you’re necessarily more honest. Just that you’re not relying on formality to make the case for any of those things for you, and the ease of such reliance can be an indicator of privilege…there are false pretenses some of us literally can’t afford to make. And slovenliness sure doesn’t restrict itself to the relaxed, let alone those on a budget.
Just saying.
I have noticed, this was a million years ago, of course, that — I was a consultant, making house-calls, as it were, fixing computers/networks for small-ish companies — if I dressed ultra-casual, I was treated better by the employees: either a) I was relaxed, therefore friendlier or b) I knew what I was doing, and didn't need the pretense of dress.
-r
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