I often wear slippers at my office. I guess I’m not cut out to be POTUS.
I suppose if you’re carrying a hammer you spend a lot of time looking for nails. The only one concerned about race here is you. It’s your problem, not mine.
I agree.
Of course, jackets and ties will be worn on the occasion of White House State Dinners.
Actually, you’re right on both counts. I did think you intended to imply that I thought some of Bush’s cabinet members actually talked/thought that way. On the second point though, you are correct about my thinking. To me, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that some cabinet members might fudge sometimes when they’re expected to show up. These are very important, stressful jobs and often there’s a lot going on (or so I imagine). I would think it would be very tempting for a cabinet offical, in the midst of putting out this or that or several fires, to think that it was more important to handle whatever it was that he or she was in the middle of than it was to arrive five or ten minutes late for a cabinet meeting, especially if it was one where either nothing of critical import was on the table or where that official in particular wasn’t due to be involved much. So it isn’t my thinking that they might be late out of immaturity but more out of a desire to finish putting out a fire of some sort.
But having said that, thanks for your clarifications. 
I did misread your intent.
I like, I like!!!
Although the redheads not wearing pink thing came from Anne of Green Gables, believe it or not. Anne laments about how she can never wear anything pink, because of her hair.
But then are presidents allowed to wear pink?
Sure.
That’s not President Reagan that’s Ronald Reagan, washed up movie actor and host of TV’s Death Valley Days and spokesman for Twenty Mule Team Borax.
Not quite. Actually, he was running around kicking Bobby Kennedy’s ass in debates at about that time. 
I keep wondering this myself.
If you treat Starving Artist with the credibility he deserves, he stops being irritating and starts being funny. The guy seriously thinks that dressing nicely causes people to behave better. How is that not funny? I’ll bet it never occurred to him (assuming the better dressed people really do behave better) that it’s not the clothes causing better behavior, but that better behaved people tend to dress better.
That’s right! It’s never occurred to me because, while there may be a certain truth to the statement that better behaved people tend to dress better, there’s a certain shift in mindset that occurs when people actually do dress nicely. In my opinion there are several reasons for this. One, people are taught – or at least they used to be when most people actually did dress nicely – not to act rough or misbehave so they wouldn’t ruin their nice clothes or get them dirty. Two, people tend to feel a little more formal when they’re dressed nicely and formal behavior tends to be more polite. Three, people know that others expect them to behave nicely because of the way they’re dressed and they tend to act so as to fulfill that expectation. And four, people generally treat them more nicely and with more respect and that tends to engender feelings of good will toward others.
This is all pretty elementary. Just imagine how you react mentally when you see someone looking and behaving in a manner that suggests they are a jerk, and it’s not hard to see how an opposite impression would cause an opposite mental reaction on your part.
Do you really think that wearing suits is an indicator of education and trustworthiness? It doesn’t, you know, no more than wearing a western style hat and cowboy boots makes a man a rancher.
The previous denziens of the White House certainly created an illusion of education and trustworthiness.
So at this point, scads of photos of GWB and other presidents in the Oval Office without a coat and tie are coming to light. I presume Andy Card with be on the Sunday shows and admit his mistake.
(Lincoln worked to free the slaves. Kennedy worked in frayed sleeves. One of those creepy coincidences.)
Red clown nose?
Propeller hat?
Those goofy glasses with the eyeballs on springs?
Heath Ledger’s Joker makeup?
An Afro, surely that would work!
Hey what do tall, dark white men look like when they suit up
Rather than elementary, (as in grade school logic?), this is just gratuitous assertion that I gratuitously deny.
I went to a college prep school during the period before your claims that society degenerated and we were required to wear a tie and either a jacket or sweater. I saw about as much roughhousing among my schoolmates as I saw among the kids I would visit at other schools where there were much more lax dress codes. Alternatively, I have worked in offices with dress codes and I have provided field inspection for guys wearing really grubby clothing, and neither group was given over to any more rude behavior than the other.
It is the sort of belief with no actual basis in fact imposed on other people by people who like to dress up. (Typical of the elitism often displayed by conservatives. 
)
There is a tiny grain of truth in the point about not wanting to ruin expensive clothes–one that is manifested in the frequent removal of a jacket before a fight, but is as often ignored by the typical male teen who simply wants to start hurling punches.
It is also true that people who are dressed up receive slightly more deference from small-minded people, but that hardly translates into automatically acting better any more than it compels the wearer to behave in a disdainful or snobbish fashion–a point that is equally likely.
It is also true that, as has been pointed out earlier, it hardly results in good behavior, as demonstrated by the actions of the officers at Enron or the government types who approved the use of torture.
That’s a real nifty metaphor (I guess, maybe…nah just being nice), but I wouldn’t have said a word to you if not for your ludicrous opinion of blacks wearing suits. Go to IMHO or MPSIMS if you can’t handle pointed criticism, big guy from the Bronx.
I’m still wondering what you think Obama looks like formally dressed. It’s intriguing to think a guy a mere three tints darker than an anemic Swede can’t dress himself as the white guys do lest he transforms himself into Darth Vader. That is some funny shit to me.
The bolded part may be the crucial difference between your opinion and mine, here.
If a powerful person had to choose between handling important matters vital to the nation or to the world, or attending a worthless meeting where their attendance is purely a photo-op, I would rather they handle the important stuff. Bush, evidently, preferred that they come to the meeting and sit there quietly with their jackets on. From what I gather, you are more keen on discipline, consistency, and respect for the high office than actual, you know, productivity.
Of course, a powerful office needs to be filled by a suitably powerful and skilled person who knows how to budget his time, how to prioritize, and how to send a memo to the President that says, “Dear Mr. [del]Letterman[/del] President: Economy is about to crater. I cannot attend. I will send updates when I have more information. Am sending undersecretary in my place. Please accept my apologies.” And then go take care of whatever needs to be done.
On my list of vital, important duties, attending a make-work meeting in a nice suit doesn’t rise very high in priority. It would be insulting to waste the time of powerful men to ask them to punctually attend a meeting and do nothing when they could be doing something useful instead.
Racists?
Dude, you’re the one who said that a black guy in a suit looks like a waiter. You’re Lucille Bluth with a penis. Own it.
WTF?