Thursday, January 29, 2009

What "restoring honor and dignity to the White House" really meant

From the New York Times today, a slice of life from the Bush Administration. Told that Obama had issued "business casual" dress guidelines for the White House on weekends, and had arrived for a Saturday briefing in "slacks and a gray sweater over a white buttoned-down shirt,"
Veterans of 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.”
So, for Bush & co., what constituted an honorable and dignified Administration? Politicizing federal prosecutors?- Check. Suppressing scientific conclusions that undercut favored policies? Check. Letting corporate lobbyists rewrite Federal regulations? Check. Torturing enemy combatants and gutting Americans' core civil liberties? Check. Cooking intelligence and lying relentlessly to the public about the motives underlying policy? Check. Doing it all in jackets and ties? Double check.

Perhaps their memory will put the final kabosh on formal western attire.

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