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.
I’ll take ’em. i collect commemorative plates, especially state plates.
i don’t dig the franklin mint plates though, the ones advertised in sunday supplements. UUUUUUUUGLY!
give Obama a call. Maybe he’ll let you have them.
nah, the bushies selected them, they’re probably really ugly.
I bet they’d make a lovely ashtray, though.
Obama is making a real break with tradition there.. Presidential China designs are actually a fascinating way to look into the characters who’ve been living in the White House. He’s almost got to pick out a set of plates himself. Perhaps he should just buy a bunch with his portrait from the Franklin Mint.
I saw a great collection of Presidential China accidentally one day at the Philly art museum. I’m not a plate/china person, but it was freakin’ hilarious some of the shite taste folks had.
Interestingly, some administrations do not get new china, or they buy small sets for small gatherings.
For state dinners, they use Reagan or Clinton china, and I think they still use Lady Bird china, but enough has broken that they can’t do full state dinners anymore.
Laura Bush bought plates that she unveiled this month, but the plates are a smaller set suitably for small dinner parties. They are really nice, though. I think they had a plate from Madison’s administration and they used it as the template.
I don’t think Poppy, Carter, or Nixon have any China at all, although I could be wrong about that.
reveals a frightening level of political-dorkitude!
hehehe
So Nixon lost China?
It was revelatory, in a way. Bush was clearly more interested in appearances than substance. He liked to control people and show them who was boss (not having confidence that they would know who was boss) by chewing them out on important matters like clothing and locking them out of meetings. Of course meetings didn’t run late. He had nothing to say, no questions.
I thought the comments about Obama were cheaper shots. The thermostat and the green plates, for example. Otherwise, the picture is of a president who works and who respects the people working for and with him.
I meant unimportant not important matters, although if you took it as snark it would work as is.
The elitist in me just loves that he has stocked up on organic tea. I am sure it drives the wing nuts crazy.
I’m very interested in his reported diet, and the menu for his family, as he seems to actually care about what’s in the food he & his eat.
I see it further down the blurb linked above. I’ve been having to step through that article slowly, as each paragraph or so just amuses the hell out of me, for how richly it conveys the sea change at hand.
He’s using the Resolute desk. That’s fine for me.
Otherwise, the goddamnedfuckingBush rug has to go. Yesterday. Roll it up and pack it off to Dallas so Dubya can drool all over it.
I’d like to see Obama put the jacket on, and turn down the thermostat.
a la Jimmy Carter, with his sweater.
Carter was right on the thermostat issue, of course, though I’d hope Obama could set a similar example with more style and less preaching.
I’ve got a Star Wars Milennium Falcon plate that I could lend him. Yes, it was bought years ago in a brief moment of temporary insanity.
It’s funny because the most popular commercial on television appears to be ads for commemorative Obama plates.
Apparently Laura Bush spent just under $500,000 on the new china.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Politics/Story?id=6593323&page=1
REALLY?!!?
And we are bitching about Car Company CEO airplane rides?
REALLY??!!!???
I think the company that made it filed for Chapter 11. I remember a reporter asking her about that when she was introducing it and she wasn’t amused.
How can you possibly go bankrupt selling half million dollar dinnerware?
I agree with him on the plates — I’m sure he can find something else suitable for the bookshelves. Books, for instance. Or small items that have personal meaning for him.
The little things that Bush did — summoning aides or staff to his office, demanding a certain dress code, his use of demeaning nicknames even for people he (supposedly) liked… all those things speak of someone who was not secure in his position, and had to reinforce his own status at any opportunity (at the expense of someone else’s) in order to feel like he was, in fact, actually in charge. Form mattered more than substance — because frankly, there wasn’t much substance there, so the form was holding up an ego as frail as a house of cards that could feel threatened at any deviation from that form.
I’ve worked for guys like that. Had one boss that needed the shift supervisor to drive him to the other work sites — only ten minutes away — in the staff car, even though he was perfectly capable of driving himself, and the shift supervisor was the only person available if one of the guards sitting a post needed backup to go to the restroom or get their lunch. I really think he considered being driven places a perk of the position — like the CEO of the big corporation we ran security for. Made him feel important, when his needs were a priority over the supervisor’s regular duties.
Obama, on the other hand — he knows who he is, and is comfortable with his position. He doesn’t need artificial ego support. He’s focused on substance — it’s not that he’s unaware of the form, but it’s not where his priorities are. The daily economic briefing is a good priority — the decor of his office is not. I’ll take the substance over form any day.