Shirtsleeves

Apparently, Pat Buchanan and some others have been stirring up some shit over the pictures of Obama in his shirtsleeves yesterday in the Oval Office. The complaint seems to be that the tradition is that the President and anyone entering the Oval Office be wearing coat and tie, as if Obama is making a sudden break with tradition.

But, just as a point of fact, I know that this tradition was broken at least sixteen years ago, because it wasn't followed in the Clinton administration. When the Bushies came into office eight years ago, one of the immediate changes Bush made was to reinstate the more formal coat-and-tie rule. Obama is just reverting to what had been before Bush took office, not reversing years of tradition.

Point of fact.

(I remember reading articles about this in Bush's first days in the White House, because there wasn't much else going on but that thing with the plane in China. At least, not much going on we knew about, because of the Bushies' famous secrecy that we weren't aware of yet).